UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


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Ancient  Classics  for  English  Readers 

EDITED   BY  THE 

REV.   W.    LUCAS   COLLINS,   M.A. 
SUPPLEMENTARY  SERIES.) 


CATULLUS,    TIBULLUS, 


AND 


PEOPEETIUS 


6  4  3  8         4 


CONTENTS    OF    THE    SERIES. 


HOMER :  THE  ILIAD Br  the  Editor. 

HOMER :  THE  ODYSSEY,         ...  By  the  Same. 

HERODOTUS,  ...  By  George  C.  Swayne,  M.A. 
C^SAR,  .,,,,.         By  Anthony  Trollops. 

VIRGIL, By  the  Editor. 

HORACE By  Theodore  Martin. 

iESCHYLUS,  By  the  Right  Rev.  the  Bishop  of  Colombo. 
XENOPHON,         .       .    By  Sir  Alex.  Grant,  Bart.,  LL.D. 

CICERO By  the  Editor- 

SOPHOCLES,  ...  By  Clifton  W.  Collins,  M.A. 
PLINY,  By  a.  Church,  M.A.,  and  W.  J.  Brodribb,  M.A. 
EURIPIDES,  ...       By  William  Bodham  Donne. 

JUVENAL,      ....         By  Edward  Walford,  M.A. 

ARISTOPHANES, By  the  Editor. 

HESIOD  AND  THEOGNIS,  By  the  Rev.  James  Davies,  M.A. 
PLAUTUS  AND  TERENCE,  ...  By  the  Editor. 
TACITUS,      ....       By  William  Bodham  Donne. 

LUCIAN By  the  Editor. 

PLATO .By  Clifton  W.  Collins. 

THE  GREEK  ANTHOLOGY,    ...    By  Lord  Neaves. 

LIVY, By  the  Editor. 

OVID By  THE  Rev.  A.  Church,  M.A. 

CATULLUS,  TIBULLUS.  &  PROPERTIUS,  By  J.  Davies,  M.A. 
DEMOSTHENES,  .  .  By  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Brodribb,  M.A. 
ARISTOTLE, .       .       .    Bv  Sir  Alex.  Grant,  Bart.,  LL.D. 

THUCYDIDES, By  the  Editor. 

LUCRETIUS,  .  .  .  .  By  W.  H.  Mallock,  M.A. 
PINDAR,        ...       By  the  Rev.  F.  D.  Morice,  M.A. 


d  S^   SIAIEMORMAlSCfiJOL. 
L«lAii(«les,Cal. 


CATULLUS,  TIBULLUS, 


PEOPEKTIUS 


BY  THE 


REV.  JAMES   DAVIES,   M.A- 

nUBENDAKV  OK   HEREFORD  CATHEDRAI.; 
.    VORMaRLY  SCHOLAR   OV   LINCOUT 
COLLEGE,   OXPORn 


PHILADELPHIA 

J.  B.   LIPPINCOTT   &   CO. 

1881. 


fc(55" 


PREFACE. 


In  the  following  chapters  special  acknowledgment  is 
due  to  Mr  Theodore  Martin  for  numberless  extracts 
from  his  admirable  and  now  perfected  version  of 
Catullus ;  and  an  almost  equal  debt  has  been  in- 
curred to  Dr  James  Cranstoun  by  loans  on  his  Tibul- 
lus  and  Propertius,  both  of  them  scliolarly  perform- 
ances, and  at  present  the  most  adequate  English 
versions  of  those  poets  in  a  complete  form.  Through 
the  kindness  of  friends,  and  the  publicity  of  reviews, 
some  variety  has  been  imparted  to  the  translations — 
e.g.,  in  poems  of  Catullus  rendered  by  Mr  R.  Dodd- 
ridge Blackmore,  the  author  of  'Lorna  Doone;'  in 
the  "Nuptials  of  Peleus  and  Thetis,"  a  portion  of 
which  has  been  given  in  a  free  translation  by  the 
Kev.  A.  C.  Auchmuty ;  and  in  pieces  of  Catullus  and 
Propertius,  borrowed  from  Hummel  and  Brodribb's 
'Lays  from  Latin  Lyres'  (1876:  Longmans);  and 
from    the    late   Sir   Edmund    Head's   'Ballads  and 


VI  PREFACE. 

Poems'  (Smith  &  Elder:  1868),  in  which  the  trans- 
lations of  Propertius  are  sadly  too  few.  In  the 
course  of  the  work  the  writer  has  found  that  it 
is  perfectly  vain  to  expect  the  reader  to  take 
kindly  to  the  versions  of  Professor  Eobinson  Ellis; 
but  he  may  tolerate  the  few  that  are  given  for 
their  exact  literality  and  evident  scholarship.  Mr 
Paley's  versions,  where  they  have  been  used,  will  be 
found  to  combine  poetic  feeling  with  these  merits. 
It  has  seemed  well  to  designate  aU  the  versions  of  the 
three  poets  for  which  the  author  of  the  volume  is  him- 
self responsible  with  the  letter  "  D. ;  "  and  he  desires 
to  plead  for  these  not  so  much  a  claim  of  superiority 
to  other  versions,  as  a  scruple  to  avail  himself  of  the 
honey  of  other  bees,  without  samples  and  contribu- 
tions from  his  own  hive.  There  is  room  for  even 
more  workers  in  this  special  field  of  translation ;  and 
the  volume  wiU  have  done  good  if  it  inspires  a 
friendly  rivalry  in  rendering  three  specially  delightful 
poets  into  congenial  English. 

J.D. 

MooB  CouBT,  September  1,  1878. 


CONTENTS. 


CATULLUS. 

IrAOB 
CHAP.        I.   THE  LIFE  OF  VALERIUS  CATULLUS,         .  .  1 

II  II.    CATULLUS  AND   LESBIA,  ....         13 

II         III.    CATULLUS   BEFORE  AND  AFTEB    THE   MISSION 

TO   BITHYNIA, 33 

n  IV.   CATULLUS  AMONG  MEN  OF  LITERATURE,        .        49 

n  V.   HYMEN,    O  HYMENJEE  !  ....        62 

n  yi.   THE     ROMAN  -  ALEXANDRINE    AND     LONGER 

FOEMS  OF  CATULLUS,  .  .  .  .76 

TIBULLUS. 

n             r.   THE  LIFE  OF  ALBIU8  TIBULLUS,    ...  98 

n            II.    TIBULLUS   AND   HIS   LOVES,    .           .            *           .  104 
N          III.   TIBULLUS      IN     HIS     CIVIL    AMD    RELIGIOUS 

CAPACITY, 121 

PBOPERTIUS. 

H  I.   LIFE  OF  8EXTU8  PROPERTIUS,        .  .  .131 

II         II.  Cynthia's  poet,  .        ...        .        .     147 

N  III.    PltOPEUTIUS     AS     A     SINGER     OF     NATIONAL 

ANNALS  AND  BIOGRAPHY,  ....      168 


CATULLUS. 


CHAPTER  L 

THE    LIFE   OF   VALERIUS   CATULLUS. 

Valerius  Catullus — about  whose  prsenomen  there  is 
no  evidence  to  show  whether  it  was  Caius  or  Quintus, 
and  need  be  still  less  concern,  as  wherever  the  poet 
speaks  of  himself  in  his  poems  it  is  by  his  surname 
Catullus — was  born  at  Verona  B.C.  87,  and  died,  it  is 
probable,  in  B.C.  54  or  53.  Like  the  two  somewhat 
later  elegiac  poets  usually  associated  with  him,  his 
life  and  flower  were  brief  j  but  there  is  internal  evi- 
dence to  prove  that  he  was  alive  after  b.o.  57,  his 
death-date  in  the  Eusebian  Chronicle ;  and  the  silence 
of  his  muse  as  to  public  events  immediately  subsequent 
to  54  B.C.,  the  death  of  Clodius  in  52,  and  the  civil 
wars  in  49-47  amongst  the  number,  forbids  the  pro- 
bability that  he  attained  a  longer  span  than  some 
thirty-four  years.  A  colour  has  been  sought  to  be 
given  to  a  later  date  from  the  supposed  mention  in 
A.O.8.S.,  voL  iiL  A 


2  CATULLU8.        

Poem  lii.  of  the  actual  consulsJiip  of  Vatinius  in  B.o. 
47;  but  it  is  clear  from  Cicero  that  that  worthy  whilst 
ascending  the  ladder  of  office  had  a  habit  of  enforcing 
his  affirmations  by  the  oath,  "  as  sure  as  I  shall  be 
consul,"  *  and  so  that  the  poet  ridiculed  a  mere  pros- 
pect, and  not  an  accomplished  fact — 

"  Vatinius — what  that  caitiff  dares  ! — 
By  when  he  shall  be  consul  swears ! " 

Similarly,  the  argument  for  a  much  later  date  than 
67  B.C.  for  Catullus's  lampoons  on  Caesar  and  Mamurra 
may  as  well  be  used  on  the  other  side,  as  it  is  obvious 
that  such  attacks  would  be  on  all  accounts  subdued 
after  the  Dictatorship  was  established,  though  policy 
and  statesmanship  doubtless  counsel  ignorance  or  over- 
sight of  such  petty  and  ephemeral  warfare.  On  the 
whole,  it  should  seem  that  there  are  allusions  in  the 
poems  of  Catullus  which  must  have  been  written  in 
RO.  54  and  in  53,t  but  scarcely  a  shadow  of  any 
grounds  for  believing  him  to  have  survived  the  later 
of  these  dates. 

Beyond  the  birth-date,  we  have  literally  no  souvenirs 
of  the  childhood  or  early  youth  of  Catullus,  for  he  has 
recorded  scarcely  any  adinunitiis  locorum,  like  Horace, 
and  does  not  deal  in  playfuUy-described  miracles  to 

*  Cic.  in  Vatin.  Interrog.,  2.  6.  5.  11. 

+  Some  allusions  in  C.  xii.  to  Furius  and  Anrelius,  and  in  C. 
xxix.,  are  later  than  Cfesar's  invasion  of  Britain  in  B.C.  55  ; 
and  C.  liii.  is  an  epigram  based  on  a  speech  of  Licinius  Calvus 
against  Vatinius,  whom  Cicero  at  Caesar's  instance  defended  iu 
«.c.  5i. 


THE  LIFE  OF  VALERIUS  CATULLUS.  3 

herald  the  advent  of  a  "divine  poet."  Born  at 
Verona,  an  important  town  of  Transpadane  Gaul 
on  the  river  Athesis,  which  became  a  Latin  colony 
in  89  B.C.,  and  one  of  the  finest  cities  in  that  part  of 
Italy,  he  was  by  family  and  antecedents  essentially 
Eoman,  and  in  education  and  tastes  must  be  regarded 
as  emphatically  a  town-bird.  There  is  nothing  to  lead 
to  the  impression  that  he  had  the  keen  eye  of  Virgil 
for  the  natural  and  sylvan  beaties  of  his  birthplace 
and  its  environs,,  no  special  mention  of  its  wine, 
apples,  or  spelt.  He  does  not  indeed  utterly  ignore 
the  locality,  for  one  of  his  most  graceful  pieces  is  ^ 
rapture  about  Sirmio  (C.  xxxL),  where  he  possessed 
a  vdla,  no  great  distance  from  Verona,  on  the  shores 
of  the  Lago  di  Garda.  Hither  in  his  manhood  he 
returned  for  solace  after  trouble  and  disappointment ; 
but  it  was  probably  rather  with  a  craving  for  rest  tlian 
from  the  love  of  nature,  which  is  not  a  key-note  of  his 
life  or  poetry.  His  removal  to  Rome  at  an  early  ago 
for  his  education  must  have  begun  the  weaning  pro- 
cess ;  and  though  Verona  had  its  "  capital  in  little," 
its  importance,  still  witnessed  by  the  remains  of  an 
amphitheatre  more  perfect  though  smaller  than  the 
Colosseum,  its  medley  of  inhabitants  from  the  east 
and  west,  with  a  fair  share  of  culture  and  urbanity, 
in  spite  of  the  infusion  of  barbarism  which  Cicero 
complained  had  reached  even  Rome  with  the  "  breeks  " 
of  the  peoples  from  beyond  the  Alps,  it  is  easy  to 
conceive  that  Catullus  soon  contracted  a  preference 
for  the  capital,  and  was  fain  to  quiz  the  provincials 
of  his  original  home,  though  he  seems  to  have  retained 


4"  CATULLUS. 

not  a  few  acquaintances  and  family  ties  amongst  them. 
Such  ties,  as  is  seen  in  the  cases  of  Catullus  and 
Horace,  were  stronger  in  the  provinces  than  in  Eome ; 
and  we  shall  see  anon  that  the  former  was  influenced 
by  the  tenderest  and  most  touching  fraternal  affection ; 
but  the  charms  of  a  residence  at  Rome,  from  the  school- 
boy period  up  to  his  brief  life's  end,  asserted  a  power 
which  was  rarely  interrupted  by  rustication  or  foreign 
travel ;  and  he  cannot  herein  be  accused  of  the  vola- 
tility or  changeableness  which  characterised  others  of 
his  craft  and  country.  This  would  be  a  power  certain 
to  grow  with  years,  and  the  more  so  as  books,  society, 
culture,  were  accumulated  in  the  capital  "  At  Eome," 
wrote  the  poet  to  Manlius — 

"  Alone  I  live,  alone  my  studies  ply, 
And  there  my  treasures  are,  my  haunts,  my  home." 

It  is  little  more  than  guess-work  to  speculate  on  the 
rank  and  calling  of  Catullus's  father.  From  the  life 
of  Julius  C8esar  by  Suetonius  we  gather  that  he  was 
on  terms  of  intimacy  with,  and  a  frequent  host  of,  that 
great  man ;  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  he  and  the 
son  who  died  in  Asia  Minor  may  have  been  merchants, 
though  the  death  in  question  would  consist  as  well 
with  the  surmise  that  Catullus's  brother  was  on  some 
praetor's  staflF.  Attempts  have  been  made  to  establish 
against  the  poet  himself  a  charge  of  impecuniousness 
and  wastefulness  ;  but  "  the  cobwebs  in  his  purse  "  in 
the  invitation  to  Fabullus  (C.  xiii.)  are  a  figure  of 
speech  which  need  not  be  literally  interpreted ;  his 
allusions  in  C.  xi.,  "  Concerning  Varus's  Mistress,"  to  a 


THE  LIFE  OF  VALERIUS  CATULLUS.  5 

scanty  exchequer  and  shabby  equipment  whilst  in  the 
suite  of  Memmius  in  Bithynia,  cut  rather  at  that  ill- 
conditioned  and  illiberal  prsetor  than  himself ;  and  as 
to  the/eM  d^ esprit  about  the  "Mortgage,"  it  makes  all 
the  difference  of  meum  and  tuum  whether  we  read  of 
"  your  "  or  "  my  "  country-seat  as  the  snug  tenement, 
as  to  which  the  poet  tells  Furius — 

"  That  there's  a  mortgage,  I've  been  told. 
About  it  wound  so  neatly, 
That,  ere  this  new  moon  shall  be  old, 
'TwUl  sweep  it  oflf  completely." — (C.  xxvi.) 

Some  possible  colour  for  the  suspicion  is  indeed  found 
in  the  fact  that  on  occasion — like  other  young  men 
about  town — Catullus  sought  to  improve  his  finances, 
and  so — like  other  young  men — ^joined  the  suite  of  the 
praetor,  Caius  Memmius,  in  Bithynia,  attracted  by  the 
literary  prestige  of  that  governor,  who  was  the  friend 
and  patron  of  Lucretius.  From  him,  however,  he  de- 
rived nothing  but  disappointment.  Memmius  did  not 
enrich  his  own  coffers  :  his  suite,  if  we  may  judge  by 
Catullus,  did  not  recoup  their  outfit;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  might  have  stood  as  a  warning  to  other 
would-be  fortune-menders  for  the  nonce,  as  the  poet 
points  the  simile — 

"  Like  me,  who  following  about 
My  prcetor — was — in  fact,  cleaned  out." — (C.  xxviii.) 

But  with  regard  to  the  poet's  general  finances  we 
have  certainly  no  reason,  from  his  remains,  to  suppose 
that  he  was  habitually  out  at  elbows.    On  the  contrary, 


6  CATULLUS. 

we  know  that  he  had  two  country-houses, — one  at  the 
Lago  di  Garda  (which  some  have  thought  is  still  repre- 
sented by  the  ruins  of  a  considerable  edifice  at  the  ex- 
tremity of  the  promontory  on  its  southern  shore,  though 
later  discoveries  show  that  these  are  remains  of  baths 
of  the  date  of  Constantine,  to  say  nothing  of  their  ex- 
tent being  out  of  keeping  with  a  poet's  villa) ;  and  the 
other  in  the  suburb  of  Tibur,  where  was  his  Tiburtine, 
or,  as  his  ill-wishers  called  it,  to  tease  him,  his  Sabine 
Parm  (C.  xliv.)  Add  to  these  a  house  and  library  at 
Rome,  of  which  he  wrote,  as  we  have  seen  above,  to 
Manlius,  and  an  estate  which  he  owed  to  the  bounty 
of  a  friend,  and  of  which  little  more  is  known  than 
that  it  included  amongst  other  goods  and  chattels  a 
housekeeper ;  *  and  we  shall  determine  that  Catullus 
was  probably  in  nowise  amenable  to  the  charge  of 
being  a  spendthrift  or  "  distrest  poet,"  but  rather  a  man 
of  good  average  means,  in  fair  circumstances  and  good 
society.  For  the  latter  it  is  plain  that  his  education 
would  have  fitted  him.  Though  he  had  not,  like 
Horace,  the  advantage  of  a  Greek  sojourn  to  give  it 
finish  and  polish,  he  had  enjoyed  what  was  then  at  a 
premium  in  Latin  towns  even  more  than  at  Eome,  a 
thorough  introduction  to  Greek  literature.  Herein  he 
laid  the  foundations  of  that  deep  familiarity  with  the 
Alexandrian  poets,  which,  in  common  with  his  brother 
elegiast,  Propertius,  but  perhaps  with  special  manipu- 
lation all  his  own,  characterises  his  other  than  erotic 
poetry.     It  is  possible  that  the  imitations  of  Alexan- 

♦  "  To  my  domains  he  set  an  ampler  Tx)und, 
And  unto  me  a  home  and  mistrets  gave." 


THE  LIFE  OF  VALERIUS  CATULLUS.  7 

drlne  poetry  may  have  been  his  earliest  poetic  efforts, 
but  the  more  natural  supposition  is  that  his  earliest 
verses  are  inspired  rather  by  the  taverns  and  lounges  of 
Roman  or  Veronese  resort  than  by  the  schools;  and  if 
so,  an  early  date  would  be  assigned  to  "  Colonia,  its 
Old  Bridge,  and  the  Stupid  Husband"  (C.  xvii.),  the 
poem  about  a  "Babbling  Door,"  the  "Mortgage,"  and 
other  like  squibs  and  jeux  (V esprit.  The  lack  of  what, 
to  the  accomplished  Eoman  of  the  highest  rank,  was 
tantamount  to  a  college  education  at  Athens,  Catullus 
made.up  later  on  by  what  is  also  a  modern  equivalent 
— foreign  travel.  After  his  bootless  winter  in  Bithynia, 
ho  chartered  a  yacht  and  started  on  a  tour  amidst  the 
isles  of  the  Archipelago,  after  having  first  done  the 
cities  of  Asia.  And  so  up  the  Ionian  and  Adriatic 
he  sailed  home  to  the  Lago  di  Garda  and  Sirniio, 
furnished,  doubtless,  with  poetic  material  and  fancy 
suggested  by  his  voyage,  and  fitted  more  tlian  ever  for 
the  intercourse  of  those  literary  men  at  Rome  wlioso 
friendship  he  enjoyed  in  his  mature  life, — if  we  may 
use  such  an  expression  of  one  who  died  at  thirty -four. 
Among  these  were  Pollio,  Calvus,  Cicero,  Cornelius 
NepoSj  with  whom  to  have  been  on  terms  of  intimacy 
is  a  distinct  set-off  against  an  acquaintance  with  some 
scores  of  lighter  and  looser  associates.  It  is  only  im- 
perfect acquaintance  with  the  poems  of  Catullus  that 
Bets  up  his  image  as  that  of  a  mere  Anacreontic  poet, 
a  light  jester  and  voluptuary,  who  could  not  be  earnest 
but  when  his  jealousy  was  roused  by  his  beauteous 
bane — his  Lesbia.  The  finislied  grace  of  his  jwetic 
compliments  to  such  historic  Romans  as  those  we  have 


8  CATULLUS. 

just  named  may  be  set  beside  the  touching  and  pathetic 
poem  to  his  brother  as  proofs  of  his  exquisite  com- 
mand of  very  different  veins,  although  in  his  hours  of 
youthful  gaiety  he  could  throw  off  light  lays  on  pass- 
ing tittle-tattle,  or  chronicle  adventures  more  or  less 
scandalous  and  licentious.  His  claim  to  permanent 
honour  as  a  poet  rests  upon  the  depths  of  intense 
feeling  which,  whether  in  light  love  (if  his  love  for 
Lesbia  can  ever  be  so  called)  or  in  brotherly  affection, 
as  shown  in  his  lament  for  his  brother's  death  in  the 
Troad,  well  up  to  the  sound  of  the  plaintive  lyre.  It 
is  pretty  fully  settled  that  this  brother's  death  did  not 
synchronise  with  the  poet's  voyage  to  Bithynia.  Had 
it  been  so,  would  he  not  surely,  as  Mr  Theodore 
Martin  has  observed,  have  linked  a  fond  memory  of 
their  joint  boyhood  with  his  ode  on  return  to  Sirmio  ? 
The  times  and  seasons  were  distinct,  but  Catullus 
made  a  set  pilgrimage  to  his  brother's  grave  on  the 
Ehsetean  headland  ;  and  to  this  landmark,  as  it  were, 
of  his  life,  this  heartbreaking  journey,  and  the  deso- 
lation of  the  home  to  which  he  returned,  must  be 
referred  his  sad  lines  to  Hortalus,  Manlius,  and  Cor- 
nificius.  If  to  this  we  add  the  late  realisation  of 
Lesbia's  utter  wantonry  (a  chapter  in  the  poet's  his- 
tory which,  as  influencing  it  beyond  all  others,  deserves 
to  be  treated  separately  and  at  length),  it  is  made  clear 
that  his  youthful  spirits  may  by  this  time  have  been 
deserting  the  sensitive  and  saddened  Catullus ;  and 
though  there  is  no  distinct  record  of  his  death,  the 
inference  is  justifiable  that  accumulated  bereavements 
and  the  rupture  of  tenderest  ties,  rather  than  the 


THE  LIFE  OF  VALERIUS  CATULLUS.  9 

effects  of  habitual  profligacy,  brought  to  a  premature 
death  the  richly-gifted  and  learned  Veronese  songster, 
whom  Ovid  in  his  "  Amores  "  bids  meet  another  early- 
taken  bard  —  TibuUus  —  his  youthful  temples  ivy- 
crowned,  in  the  Elysian  valley.  It  is  surely  with  his 
riper  years  (perhaps  about  61  or  60  B.C.),  and  not  with 
those  when  he  was  more  fickle  and  in  the  heyday  of 
young  blood,  that  we  should  connect  his  passion  for 
Lesbia.  Tired,  perhaps,  of  light  loves,  which  left  only 
their  bitterness  behind,  he  had  dreamed — though  it  was 
an  empty  and  ill-founded  dream — of  a  more  enduring 
connection  with  this  most  beautiful  and  graceless  of 
Roman  matrons.  This  idol  shattered,  its  worshipper 
undeceived,  and  the  brother  whom  he  loved  with  a 
pure  affection  torn  from  him  by  an  untimely  death, 
Catullus  has  little  more  in  the  way  of  a  landmark  for 
the  biographer.  Between  these  events  and  his  death- 
date,  whether  we  take  that  as  57  or  54  b.c.,  there  was 
time  for  tender  regrets,  occasional  alternations  between 
palinodes  and  professions  of  forgiveness,  presentiments 
of  coming  fate,  and  more  direct  facing  of  premature 
death.  Time  also,  as  to  our  good  fortune  he  discov- 
ered, for  collecting  the  volume  of  his  poems,  which  ho 
fitly  dedicated  to  Cornelius  Nepos,  and  forwarded  to 
him  in  a  liighly-finished  dainty  copy,  "  purfled,"  as 
one  translator  expresses  it,  "  glossily,  fresh  with  ashy 
pumice."  It  is  a  happy  sample  of  his  ideal  of  i)oetic 
compliment,  and  apologetically  excuses  the  boldness 
of  offering  so  slender  an  equivalent  for  the  historian's 
three  volumes  (which  have  not  survived)  of  Italian 
history.     The  first  verse  illustrates  the  binding  and 


10  CATULLUS. 

preparing  of  a  Eoman  presentation  copy.  The  last 
points  the  contrast  of  a  sort  of  Diomede  and  Glaucus 
exchange  with  a  lurking  esteem  for  his  own  professedly 
inadequate  gift : — 

"  Great  Jove,  what  lore,  what  labour  there ! 
Then  take  this  little  book,  whate'er 

Of  good  or  bad  it  store  ; 
And  grant,  oh  guardian  Muse,  that  it 
May  keep  the  flavour  of  its  wit 

A  century  or  more !" — M. 

Before  proceeding  to  examine  the  extant  poetry  of 
Catullus  upon  the  principle  of  division  into  groups, 
it  is  fair  to  him  to  say  a  few  words  in  deprecation 
of  the  character  for  licentiousness  of  life  and  poetry 
under  which  it  has  been  his  misfortune  to  suffer 
amongst  moderns.  It  ought  to  be  taken  into  account 
that  the  standard  of  morals  in  his  day  was  extremely 
low;  vice  and  profligacy  walking  abroad  barefaced,  and 
some  fresh  scandal  in  high  places — amidst  the  con- 
sul's suite  and  the  victorious  general's  retinue — being 
bruited  abroad  as  day  succeeded  day.  A  poet  who  moved 
in  the  world  and  had  gained  the  repute  of  a  smart 
hitter  at  the  foibles  and  escapades  of  his  neighbours, 
whilst  himself  hot-blooded,  impetuous,  fearless,  and 
impatient  of  the  restraints  of  society,  was  not  unlikely 
to  become  the  object  of  some  such  general  charges  as 
we  find  from  C.  xvL,  that  Aurelius  and  Furius  circu- 
lated against  Catullus.  And  to  our  apprehension  the 
defence  of  the  poet — 

"  True  poets  should  be  chaste,  I  know, 
,  But  wherefore  should  their  lines  be  so  ?*— 


THE  LIFE  OF  VALERIUS  CAiULLUS.  11 

seems  like  begging  the  question,  and  scarcely  a  high 
tone  of  self-justification.  Indeed,  his  retort  is  not 
simply  turning  the  tables,  as  he  might  have  done,  on 
his  maliguers,  hut  somewhat  unnecessarily  defending 
his  life  at  the  expense  of  his  writings.  This,  it  is 
probable,  has  acted  in  his  disfavour.  Excepting  a  few 
extremely  personal  and  scurrilous  epigrams  and  skits, 
it  is  not  easy  to  pick  out  in  the  poetry  of  Catullus 
a  greater  looseness  of  language  than  in  that  of  his 
Augustan  successors ;  whilst  as  compared  with  his 
contemporaries  in  high  places  and  public  life,  his 
moral  conduct  might  have  passed  for  fairly  decent. 
"What  most  concerns  the  modem  reader  is  that  after 
abatements  and  omissions  of  what  is  more  or  less 
unpresentable,  there  remains  so  much  of  a  more  re- 
fined standard  of  poetry  and  manners,  so  much  ten- 
derness in  pure  affection  and  friendship,  so  much,  we 
might  almost  say,  chivalry  and  forgivingness  in  the 
treatment  of  more  questionable  objects  of  his  passion, 
that  we  are  won  to  condonation  of  the  evil  which  is 
that  of  the  time  and  society  for  the  charm  and  ideal 
refinement  of  the  genius  which  is  specially  his  own. 
The  standard  of  purity  and  morals  has,  we  know, 
risen  and  fallen  in  modern  tiroes  and  nations ;  and  a 
severe  "  index  expurgatorius  "  should  ban  our  Herricks, 
Moores,  and  Byrons — nay,  even  Bums ;  but  unless  a 
sponge  is  to  wipe  out  for  the  sake  of  a  few  blots  a 
body  of  true  poetry,  rare  in  form  and  singularly  rich 
in  talent  and  grace,  and  a  hard  and  fast  rule  is  to 
condemn  bitter  and  sweet  alike,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
a  fairer  insight  into  the  poetry  of  Catullus,  attainable 


12  CATULLUS. 

through  the  blameless  medium  of  at  least  one  excel- 
lent translation,  will  enable  English  readers  to  judge 
how  much  of  the  prejudice  attaching  to  the  name  of 
Catullus  is  without  foundation,  and  how  rich  and 
original  is  the  freshness  and  vivacity  of  his  muse. 
It  is  no  little  gain  to  feel  that  in  this  genius  we  have 
"  not  only  one  of  the  very  few  writers  who  on  one  or 
two  occasions  speaks  directly  from  the  heart,"  but 
one  entitled  to  the  much  more  comprehensive  praise, 
as  has  been  shown  by  Professor  Sellar,  of  "  a  wonder- 
ful sincerity  in  all  the  poems,  by  means  of  which  the 
whole  nature  of  the  poet,  in  its  better  and  worse 
features,  is  revealed  to  us  as  if  he  were  our  contem- 
porary." * 

*  Roman  Poets  of  the  Bepublic,  p.  342. 


CHAPTER   IL 

CATULLUS    AND    LESBIA. 

Although  chronology  -would  plead  for  the  postpone- 
ment till  much  later  of  the  record  of  Catullus's  love- 
fever,  and  it  might  seem  more  in  order  to  set  first  the 
floating  epigrams  and  occasional  pieces  which  treat  of 
town  or  country  jokes,  witticisms,  petite  aoupers,  and 
the  like,  and  to  make  the  reader  acquainted  with 
the  everyday  life  of  the  poet  at  home  or  abroad ; 
yet  the  passion  for  Lesbia  was  so  absorbing  when  it 
was  lighted,  and  possessed  its  victim  so  thoroughly, 
that  we  must  needs  treat  it  first  in  our  sketch  of 
his  writings.  A  poet's  love  has  mostly  been  insepar- 
able from  his  aftcr-fanie ;  and  in  a  higher  degree  than 
the  Cynthia  of  Propertius,  the  Corinna  of  Ovid,  or 
the  Delia,  probably,  of  Tibullus,  does  the  Lesbia  of 
Catullus  fasten  her  spell  around  him,  to  the  exclusion 
of  other  and  fresh  loves,  of  which  he  was  apparently 
cautious  and  forbearing  both  before  and  after  the 
crisis  of  his  master-passion.  Ilis  erotic  verses,  save 
those  to  Lesbia,  are  but  few.  Ipsithilla,  Aufilena, 
and  Ametina  are  mere  passing  and  casual  amours, 
soon  forgotten;  he  is  oftener  found  supping  with  a 


14  CATULLUS. 

friend  and  his  chere  amie  than  flirting  on  his  own 
account ;  and  there  is  nothing  in  Catullus  that  betrays 
the  almost  certainty  that  his  mistress  has  justification 
in  his  infidelity  for  any  number  of  her  own  laches  and 
transgressions,  such  as  is  always  peeping  out  in  the 
elegies  of  Propertius.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  fair  to  be- 
lieve that  in  his  case  "  the  heart  that  once  truly  loved 
ne'er  could  forget,"  however  unfortunate  and  direful  its 
choice  and  the  issue  of  it.  He  was  true  to  the  ideal 
and  stanch  to  the  championship  of  Lesbia's  resplendent 
beauty,  long  after  he  had  proved  that  it  was  not  for 
him;  and  however  disastrous  to  his  peace  of  mind, 
health,  and  even  life,  the  results  of  her  coldness  and 
fickleness,  the  spell  clung  to  his  heart,  even  after  his 
mind  was  cured ;  and  so  Lesbia  asserts  foremost  men- 
tion when  we  call  up  the  surroundings  of  Catullus. 

Who,  then,  was  this  potent  enchantress  %  The  elder 
sister,  it  is  pretty  well  agreed,  of  that  notorious  P. 
Clodius  who  was  slain  by  Milo,  and  a  member  of  the 
great  Claudian  house  at  Rome.  Like  brother,  like 
sister !  The  former  had  added  a  grave  sacrilege  to 
unheard-of  profligacy,  and  outraged  eveii  the  lax 
standard  of  Eoman  society  in  his  day  by  the  versa- 
tility of  his  shamelessness.  To  the  character  of  an 
unbridled  libertine  he  added  that  of  an  unscrupulous 
political  incendiary,  with  whom  poison  and  assassins^ 
tion  were  wonted  modes  of  removing  a  rival  from  his 
path.  The  Clodia  whom  we  identify  by  almost  common 
consent  with  the  Lesbia  of  Catullus  was  the  second  of 
his  three  sisters,  and  unequally  yoked  with  MeteUus 
Celer,  who  was  consul  in  60  B.C.,  and  on  frequent  occa- 


CATULLUS  AND  LESBIA.  15 

sions  a  correspondent  of  Cicero.  But,  like  her  sisters, 
she  was  notorious  for  her  infidelities ;  and,  like  her 
brother,  was  not  nice  as  to  methods  of  getting  rid  of 
such  as  slighted  lier  advances  or  tired  of  her  fickle- 
ness. Even  Cicero  was  credited  with  having  stirred 
her  passion  unwittingly.  A  gay  friend  of  Catullus, 
Cailius  Eufus,  had  incurred  her  persecutions  and 
false  accusations  of  an  attempt  to  poison  her,  hy 
freeing  himself  from  his  liaison  with  her ;  and  Cicero 
had  defended  him  in  a  speech  which  furnishes  llie 
details  of  her  abandoned  life  of  intrigue  and  profli- 
gacy. With  her  husband  she  was  at  constant  war ; 
and  his  death  by  poison  in  59  B,c.  was  freely  laid 
at  his  wife's  door.  So,  at  least,  we  gather  from 
Cicero's  defence  of  Caelius,  delivered  in  the  follow- 
ing year,  which  saddles  her  with  epithets  betoken- 
ing the  depths  to  which  she  had  descended  in  her 
career  of  vice  and  licence.  After  her  husband's  death, 
and  her  release  from  a  yoke  which  she  had  never 
seriously  respected,  she  appears  to  have  given  herself 
over  to  the  licentious  pleasures  of  Baiae,  kept  open 
house  with  the  young  rones  of  the  capital  at  her 
mansion  on  the  Palatine,  and  consorted  with  them 
without  shame  or  delicacy  by  the  Tiber's  bank,  or  on 
the  Appian  Koad.  In  sucii  company  Catullus,  as  an 
intimate  of  Caelius,  Gellius,  and  others  whoso  names 
were  at  one  time  or  another  in  her  visitors'  book,  most 
probably  first  met  her ;  and  the  woman  had  precisely 
the  fascinations  to  entangle  one  so  full  of  the  tender 
and  voluptuous,  and  withal  so  cultivated  and  accom- 
plished as  Catullus  must  have  been.     It  has  been  epi- 


16  CATULLUS. 

grammatically  said  of  the  women  of  that  epoch  at 
Rome  that  "the  harp  and  books  of  Simonides  and 
Anacreon  had  replaced  the  spindle  and  distaff;  and 
that  with  a  dearth  of  Lucretias,"  or  chaste  matrons, 
"  there  was  no  lack,  unfortunately,  of  Sempronias  "  * 
— i.e.,  unchaste  blue-stockings.  But  had  Clodia's  or 
Lesbia's  culture  and  cleverness  been  the  head  and 
front  of  her  offending,  the  poet  might  less  have  rued 
his  introduction  to  a  sorceress  who,  "insatiable  of 
love,  and  almost  incapable  of  loving,"  had  ambition, 
vanity,  and  woman's  pride  sufficient  to  covet  a  name 
in  connection  with  the  foremost  lyric  poet  of  the  day. 
On  his  part  there  seems  to  have  been  no  resistance  to 
the  toils;  and  no  wonder  if,  with  the  ends  of  her 
vanity  to  achieve,  she  bent  her  literary  talents,  as 
well  as  her  coquetry  and  natural  graces  of  mien  and 
person,  to  his  captivation.  Cicero  has  recorded  that 
she  was  talked  of,  like  Juno,  as  /Jowiris,  in  compli- 
ment to  her  grand  and  flashing  eyes ;  and  there  is  no 
lack  of  evidence  that  her  beauty,  grace,  figure,  and 
wit  were  rare.  It  might  be  asked  on  what  certitude 
this  description  of  Clodia  is  transferred  so  confidently 
to  Lesbia.  In  the  first  place,  let  it  be  admitted 
that,  after  the  fashion  of  the  Alexandrian  poets,  the 
custom  prevailed  with  such  Roman  writers  as  Varro, 
Atacinus,  Gall  us,  TibuUus,  Propertius,  Ovid,  to  cel- 
ebrate their  mistresses  under  the  feigned  names  of 
Leucadia,  Lycoris,  Delia,  Cynthia,  Corinna;    and  it 

*  Sempronia,  wife  of  D,  Junius  Brutus,  was  a  woman  of 
personal  attractions  and  literary  acquirements,  but  of  profligate 
character. 


CATULLUS  AND  LESBIA.  17 

will  not  seem  unlikely  that  Catullus  should  choose  for 
the  nom  de  phime  of  his  enslaver  a  name  recalling 
Sappho  the  Lesbian,  especially  as  it  was  probably 
by  a  sympathetic  translation  into  Latin  sapphics  of 
her  famous  ode  to  Phaon  that  he  first  announced 
his  suit  and  evinced  his  passion.  After  this  is  grant- 
ed, it  will  remain  to  decide  from  internal  evidence 
whether  there  are  grounds  of  identification  between 
the  Lesbia  of  CatuUus's  poetry  and  the  famous  or 
infamous  sister  of  Publius  Clodius.  They  need  only 
be  summarised  to  establish  a  verdict  in  the  affirma- 
tive, and  confirm  the  statement  of  Apuleius  that 
she  whom  Ovid  teUs  us  Catullus  loved  under  the 
feigned  name  of  Lesbia,  was  the  Clodia  whose  character 
Cicero  painted  in  such  undisguised  force  of  colours. 
First,  both  lay  under  the  stigma  of  guilty  relations  with 
a  brother.  Secondly,  both  appear  to  have  at  one  time 
indulged  an  amour  with  Cailius  Kufus,  and  both  -were 
unmistakably  married  women.  Thirdly,  the  characters 
of  both  coincide  in  point  of  wit,  learning,  and  culti- 
vation, their  persons  in  exceptional  beauty,  and  their 
tempers  in  caprice  and  occasional  violence.  Fourthly, 
the  rank  of  Clodia  was  distinctly  high  and  patrician  ; 
and  though  an  evil  name  attached  to  her  on  Cicero's 
showing,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  slie  utterly 
disregartled  appearances.  Lesbia's  rank,  indeed,  is 
not  indicated  in  plain  terms  by  her  poet,  but  it  comes 
out  in  a  probable  interpretation  of  some  expressions 
in  an  elegiac  poem  to  Allius,  that  she  was  certainly 
no  vulgar  intriguante,  but  met  her  lover  at  the  house 
of  that  noble,  and  so  far  paid  the  outward  respect  to 
A.C.8.S.,  vol.  iii.  B 


18      ^  CATULLUS. 

decency,  which  is  wont  to  be  retained  later  than  most 
other  characteristics  by  the  well-born. 

The  remains  of  Catullus  would  be  deprived  of  three 
parts  of  their  interest,  had  the  Lesbian  odes  and 
ditties  been  unfortunately  lost.  Not  only,  however, 
is  this  not  the  case,  inasmuch  as,  of  many  extant,  she 
is  the  distinct  burden :  but  many  poems,  not  pro- 
fessedly addressed  to  her,  are  really  referable  to  her 
inspiration.  Accordingly,  it  is  a  part  of  the  role  of 
every  critic  of  Catullus  to  arrange,  according  to  his 
skill  in  divination  or  conjecture,  the  sequence  of  the 
poems  of  the  Lesbian  series ;  and  that  which  it  has 
been  thought  most  convenient  to  follow  in  these  pages 
is  the  plausible  and  clear  arrangement  of  Theodore 
Martin,  the  most  congenial  and  appreciative  of 
the  poet's  English  translators.  It  is  a  happy  and 
shrewd  instinct  which  places  first  in  the  series 
that  model  translation  from  Sappho's  Greek  frag- 
ment, which  seems  at  once  a  naming-day  ode  and 
a  declaration  of  passion,  fenced  and  shielded  under  the 
guise  of  being  an  imitative  song.  The  poet,  in  the 
fervour  of  his  new-kindled  devotion,  in  the  flutter  of 
liope  and  yearning,  and  not  yet  in  the  happiness  of  even 
short-lived  assurance,  pours  forth  a  wonderful  repre- 
sentation of  one  of  the  most  passionate  of  Greek  love- 
songs  ;  and  therein  (if  we  strike  out  an  alien  stanza, 
which  reads  quite  out  of  place,  and  must  have  been 
inserted,  in  dark  days,  by  some  blundering  botcher  or 
wrong-headed  moralist)  transfers  from  the  isles  of 
Greece  burning  words  which  have  suffered  nothing  in 


Los  m^tm,  Cat. 

CATULLUS  AND  LESBIA.  19 

the  process,  and  which  perhaps  served  the  poet  for  a 
confession  of  his  flame  : — 

•  Peer  for  the  gods  he  seems  to  me, 
And  mightier  far,  if  that  may  be. 
Who,  sitting  face  to  face  with  thee, 

Can  there  serenely  gaze  ; 
Can  hear  thee  sweetly  speak  the  while, 
Can  see  thee,  Lesbia,  sweetly  smile  ; 
Joys  that  from  me  my  senses  wile 

And  leave  me  in  a  maze. 

For  ever,  when  thy  face  I  view, 

My  voice  is  to  its  task  untrue. 

My  tongue  is  paralysed,  and  through 

Each  limb  a  subtle  flame 
Runs  swiftly  ;  murmurs  dim  arise 
Within  my  ears,  across  my  eyes 
A  sudden  darkness  spreads,  and  sighs 

And  tremors  shake  my  frame.."  * 

Nothing  that  we  could  add  by  way  of  comment  could 
enhance  the  truth  to  nature  of  the  sensations,  which 
the  poet  renders  more  vivid  as  he  endorses  them,  and 
which  Tennyson  and  Shelley  have,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  enumerated  in  kindred  sequence  in 
"  Elconore "  and  the  "  Lines  to  Constantia  singing." 
There  is  something  in  their  reality  and  earnest  truth 
from  the  heart,  for  which  we  look  in  vain  for  imitation 
in  the  Elizabethan  lyrists.  Probably  to  the  same 
season  of  hope  and  wooing  must  be  referred  the  two 

C.  11.,  Rossbach  and  Lachmann  ;  Th.  Martin,  p.  8. 


20  CATULLUS. 

pretty  ditties  on  Lesbia's  sparrow,  in  life  and  in  death, 
which  the  most  casual  of  readers  connects  with  Cat- 
ullus, and  which  have  given  the  key-note  to  any  num- 
ber of  imitations,  parodies,  and  kindred  conceits, 
though,  it  may  be  confidently  averred,  at  a  marked 
abatement  of  ease  and  grace.  In  the  first,  he  pictures ' 
with  vivid  touches  the  coy  and  witching  charmer, 
inflaming  her  jealous  and  impatient  lover,  and  haply 
disguising  her  own  passion,  by  playful  toying  with  her 
pet  birdie,  to  which  she  surrenders  her  finger-tip  in 
mock  provocation.  He  has  plainly  no  sympathy  with 
misplaced  favours,  as  he  regards  the  privileges  vouch- 
safed the  favourite,  whilst  he  hungers  in  the  very 
reach  of  enjoyment.  And  his  moral  from  what  he 
witnesses  is  the  simple  suggestion  of  9  less  trifling  and 
more  worthy  object — himself — though  there  is  a  little 
obscurity  in  the  connection  with  Atalanta  and  the 
apples.  "We  give  it,  in  this  instance,  from  a  stray 
version  by  the  author  of  *  Lorna  Doone ' — 

"  Oh  that  I  could  play  with  thee 
Like  herself,  and  we  could  find 
For  sad  harassings  of  mind 
Something  gay  to  set  them  free  ! 

This  would  charm  me,  as'they  tell 
That  the  nimble  demoiselle, 
Charmed  by  golden  fruit,  betrayed 

AU  her  vows  to  die  a  maid." — R,  D.  B. 

I^rchance  the  poet  did  not  take  into  account  that  the 
fruit,  once  grasped,  was  scarce  worth  the  efibrt  to 
secure  it;  that  all  was  not  gold  that  glittered;  that 


CATULLUS  AND  LESBIA.  21 

Lesbia  was  incapable  of  deeper  feeling  than  wantoning 
with  a  bird-pet.  But  the  birdie's  elegy  is  a  yet  more 
memorable  poem, — one,  too,  that  elicits  the  poet's 
element  of  pathos.  Written  to  ingratiate  himself  with 
Lesbia,  its  burden  is  a  loyal  commemoration  of  his 
quondam  rival ;  but  a  line  or  two,  even  if  suggested 
by  an  Alexandrian  idyllist,  on  the  greed  of  Orcus 
and  the  brief  life  of  all  that  is  lovely  and  lovable, 
touch  a  chord  which  was  never  far  from  the  vein  of 
Catullus,  though  he  is  soon  recalled  to  the  sensible 
detriment  which  his  lady's  eyes  are  likely  to  suffer 
from  her  tears : — 

"  Loves  and  Graces  mourn  with  me — 

Mourn,  fair  youths,  wliere'er  ye  be  ! 

Dead  my  Lesbia's  sparrow  is — 

Sparrow  that  was  all  licr  bliss  ; 

Than  her  very  eyes  more  dear  ; 

For  he  made  her  dainty  cheer, 

Knew  her  well,  as  any  maid 

Knows  her  mother  ;  never  strayed 

From  her  bosom,  but  would  go 

Hopping  round  her,  to  and  fro  ; 

And  to  her,  and  her  alone. 

Chirruped  with  such  pretty  tone. 

Now  he  treads  that  gloomy  track 

Whence  none  ever  may  come  back. 

Out  upon  you,  and  your  jwwer, 

Which  all  fairest  things  devour, 

Orcus'  gloomy  shades,  that  e'er 

Ye  took  my  bin.1  that  was  so  fair  I 

Ah,  the  pity  of  it !     Thou 

Poor  bird,  thy  doing  'tis,  that  now 

My  loved  one's  eyes  are  swoUi-n  and  red 

With  weeping  for  her  darling  dead." 


22  CATULLUS. 

It  only  needs  to  compare  this  delicate  and  musical 
piece,  and  the  subtle  infusion  of  its  (in  the  original) 
tender  diminutives,  with  Ovid's  *'  On  the  Death  of  a 
Parrot,"  in  which  the  parrot  is  very  secondary  to  its 
mistress,  and  we  shall  discern  the  elements  of  popu- 
larity which  made  it  a  household  word  up  to  the  time 
of  Juvenal,  and  still  preserve  it  as  a  trial-ground  for 
neatness  and  finish  in  translators. 

But  soon  we  find  a  song  that  gives  a  note  of  pro- 
gress in  Lesbia's  good  graces.  A  sense  of  enjoyment 
and  abandon  animates  the  strain  in  which  Catullus 
pleads  for  licence  to  love  his  fill,  on  the  ground  that 
to-morrow  death  may  terminate  the  brief  reign  of 
fruition.  In  sharp  contrast  with  the  heyday  of 
present  joy  he  sets  the  drear  prospect  which  had 
made  itself  felt  in  the  poem  last  quoted  ;  but  now  it 
is  as  an  incentive  to  "  living  while  we  may : " — 

"  Suns  go  down,  but  'tis  to  rise 
Brighter  in  the  morning  skies ; 
But  when  sets  our  little  light, 
We  must  sleep  in  endless  night." 

The  moral,  or  conclusion,  is  not  that  Avhich  commends 
itself  to  faith  or  hope ;  but  the  pagan  mind  of  the 
erotic  poets  delighted,  as  we  may  see  in  Ovid,  Tibul- 
lus,  and  Propertius,  also  in  the  contrast  of  now  and 
then — the  gay  brightness  of  the  passing  hour  with  the 
dark  shadow  looming  in  the  background — and  drew 
from  it  no  profounder  suggestion  than  —  love  and 
kisses  !  In  the  rationale  or  arithmetic  of  these,  Catul- 
lus shows  himself  an  adept.     In  the  piece  just  quoted 


CATULLUS  AND  LESBIA.  23 

he  piles  up  an  addition  sum  that  takes  away  the 
breath,  and  eventually  gives  a  re-ason  for 

"  Kiss  after  kiss  without  cessation, 
Until  we  lose  all  calculation  ; 
So  envy  sImU  not  mar  our  blisses 
By  numbering  up  our  tale  of  kisses." 

The  ancients  had  a  motive  for  letting  their  kisses  pass 
counting,  which  does  not  appear  in  the  love-ditties  of 
our  Herricks  and  Druramonds,  though  both  betray 
the  influence  of  Catullus — the  deprecation,  to  wit,  of 
magic,  mischance,  ill-luck,  or  an  evil-eye,  which  their 
superstition  considered  unascertained  numbers  to  se- 
cure. Exemption  from  such,  then,  was  a  stimulus  to  the 
lover's  appetite  for  kisses,  as  is  pleaded  again  by  the 
poet  "To  Lesbia  Kind"  in  C.  vii.,  where  he  exhausts 
the  round  of  similes  for  numbers  numberless — the  sea- 
sands,  the  stars  of  night,  and  so  forth — and  doubts 
whether  the  very  largest  definite  number 

"  Which  a  curious  fool  might  count, 
Or  with  tongue  malignant  blast," 

could  satisfy  his  thirst  and  fever.  One  could  wish 
that  to  the  Lesbian  series  might  be  linked  a  short 
poem  in  kindred  vein  (C.  xlviii.)  which  may  well  simi 
up  the  poet's  dicta  upon  the  subject,  inscribed  "  To  a 
"Beauty  "— 

**  Oh,  if  I  thine  eyes  might  kiss, 
Anil  my  kisses  were  not  crimes, 
I  would  snatch  that  honeyed  l)lis8 
Full  three  hundred  thousand  times  I 


24  CATULLUS. 

Nor  should  these  a  surfeit  bring, 
Not  though  that  sweet  crop  should  yield 

Kisses  far  outnumbering 
Corn-ears  in  the  harvest-field." 

But  whilst  as  yet  Catullus  enjoys  a  dream  of  success- 
ful love,  and  the  fancied  happiness  of  possession,  with 
no  misgivings  arising  from  awakened  jealousy  or  fears 
of  fickleness,  has  he  left  any  hint  whereby  we  may 
reach  the  secret  of  Lesbia's  witchery  1  There  is  ono 
which  does  pre-eminently  supply  tnis — his  comparison 
of  her  with  a  contemporary  beauty  generally  admired, 
by  name  Quinctia.  The  latter,  he  admits,  has  several 
feminine  charms ;  but  Iicsbia's  attraction  is  the  con- 
centration in  herself  of  all  the  perfections  of  the  most 
peerless  women.  Hers  is  a  gathering  of  "every 
creature's  best"  into  one  ineffable  grace,  "so  perfect 
and  so  peerless  "  is  she  !  *  But  let  Catullus  speak 
through  his  eloquent  interpreter —  : 

**  Most  beautiful  in  many  eyes 
Is  Quinctia,  and  in  mine 
Her  shape  is  tall,  and  straight  withal, 
And  her  complexion  fine. 

These  single  charms  of  form  and  face 

I  grant  that  she  can  show ; 
But  all  the  concentrated  grace 

Of  '  beautiful,'  oh  no  ! 

For  nowhere  in  her  can  you  find 
That  subtle  voiceless  art — 


•  Ferdinand  to  Miranda — "  The  Tempest,"  act  iiL  sc.  1. 


CATULLUS  AND  LESBIA.  25 

That  something  which  delights  the  mind, 
And  satisfies  the  heart. 

But  Leshia's  beautiful,  I  swear ; 

And  for  herself  she  stole 
The  charms  most  rare  of  every  fair, 

To  frame  a  perfect  whole." 

But  anon  comes  a  change  over  the  poet's  complacent 
satisfaction.  This  perfect  creature  is  only  outwardly 
and  bodily  perfect;  or,  if  her  mental  endowments 
enhance  the  attractions  of  her  form  and  beauty,  he 
soon  finds  that  the  heart  is  wanting.  It  was  her 
pride  in  the  homage  of  a  brilliant  and  popular  poet 
that  had  bidden  her  win  him  to  her  feet :  the  effort 
to  retain  him  there  was  too  great  for  her  fickle  tem- 
perament, if  indeed  she  did  not  trust  her  fascinations 
to  keep  him  attached  to  her  train — at  fast  or  loose,  as 
it  suited  her  purpose.  It  would  hardly  seem  that  ho 
could  have  counted  upon  much  more,  if  we  are  to 
connect  with  Lesbia,  as  there  is  every  reason  to  do, 
the  poem  to  Manius  Acilius  Glabrio,  in  which  he  pro- 
fesses toleration  of  rivals,  and  goes  so  far  as  to  say 
that^— 

"  Therefore  so  that  I,  and  I  alone. 
Possess  her  on  the  days  she  culls  for  me, 
And  signalises  with  a  whiter  stone, 
I  care  not  how  inconstant  she  may  be." 

— (C.  Ixviii.  ad  fin.) 

Perhaps  for  a  while  it  sufficed  him  to  act  as  his  own 
detective,  and  warn  off  such  fops  as  GcUius,  Alfenus, 


36  CATULLUS 

Egnatius,  and  Eavidus  with  sarcasms,  innuendos,  and 
threats  of  biting  iambics,  if  they  forestalled  his  privi- 
leged visits.  He  may  have  trusted  also  somewhat  to 
the  gratitude  he  might  quicken  in  Lesbia's  bosom  by 
such  compliments  by  contrast  as  the  skit  he  wrote 
on  the  mistress  of  Mamurra  of  Formiae,  a  creature  of 
Julius  Caesar,  who  had  raised  him  in  Gaul  from  a  low 
station,  and  put  him  in  the  way  of  acquiring  wealth 
for  the  simple  purpose  of  squandering  it.  Its  tenor  is 
a  mock  compliment  to  a  provincial  beUe  of  features 
nowise  so  perfect  and  well  matched  as  they  miglit  be. 
And  the  suggestion  that  this  is  she  about  whom  the 
province  raves,  leads  up  to  what  Catullus  deems  the 
ne  plus  ultra  of  absurdity  : — 

"  But  then  they  say  your  shape,  your  grace, 
My  Lesbia's,  mine,  surpasses  ! 
Oh  woe,  to  live  with  such  a  race 

Of  buzzards,  owls,  and  asses  !  " — (C.  xliii.) 

Lesbia,  however,  most  probably  felt  her  hold  on  her 
poet  to  be  sufficiently  tenable  for  her  taste  or  purpose, 
and,  wanton-like,  shrank  not  from  trespassing  on  a 
love  which,  however  sensual,  might  have  been  counted 
as  stanch  for  the  period.  And  so  she  doubtless 
trespassed  upon  it,  and  outraged  him  by  some  more 
than  common  heartlessness  ;  for  such  must  have  been 
the  provocation  for  his  touching  verses  to  "Lesbia 
False,"  which  open  a  new  phase  in  the  history  of  this 
attachment,  and  discover  a  depth  of  pathos  and  ten- 
derness in  the  contemplation  of  eternal  separation, 
which  in  the  brief  sunshine  of  her  favour  he  had  had 


CATULLUS  AND  LESBIA.  27 

no  scope  for  developing.  The  feeling  which  is  aroused  is 
not  one  of  pique  or  retaliation,  or  any  like  selfish  resort 
of  vengeance :  he  steels  himself,  theoretically,  against 
the  weakness  of  further  dalliance  with  one  so  faith- 
less ;  but  his  concern  is  for  the  most  part  about  her 
fall  from  a  pedestal  whereon  his  love  had  set  her : — 

"  A  woman  loved,  as  loved  shall  be 
No  woman  e'er  by  thee  again  ! " 

Some  lingering  glances  are  indeed  thrown  in  the 
direction  of  past  delights,  and  of  "  love  for  love  ; " 
but  the  burden  of  his  song  is  the  change  it  will  be  to 
her  when  she  realises  that 

"  Her  love  for  every  one 
Has  made  her  to  be  loved  by  none." 

There  is  no  consolation  to  be  draAvn  from  a  bitter  smile 
at  this.  Catullus  sees  the  course  which  8elf-resj>ect 
dictates  to  him,  but  cannot  keep  from  the  thought  as 
to  Lesbia — 

*'  How  drear  thy  life  will  be  ! 
Who'll  woo  thee  now  ?  who  praise  thy  charms  ? 
Who  now  be  all  in  all  to  thee. 
And  live  but  in  thy  loving  arms  ? 

Ay,  who  will  give  thee  kiss  for  kiss  1 
Whose  lip  wilt  thou  in  rapture  bite  ? 

But  thou,  Catnlhus,  think  of  this. 
And  spurn  her  in  thine  own  despite." — (C.  viii.) 

Fine  resolves  "  to  let  the  wanton  go,"  which  she,  on 


28  CATULLUS. 

her  part,  appears  to  have  faintly  opppsed  by  offhand 
professions  and  general  assurances,  which  Catullus, 
for  the  matter  of  that,  was  quite  sharp  enough  to  see 
through.     "  My  mistress,"  he  writes  in  C.  Ixx. — 

"  My  mistress  says,  there  s  not  a  man 
Of  all  the  many  that  she  knows, 
She'd  rather  wed  than  me,  not  one. 
Though  Jove  himself  were  to  propose. 

She  says  so  ; — but  what  woman  says 
To  him  who  fancies  he  has  caught  her, 

'Tis  only  fit  it  should  be  writ 
In  air  or  in  the  running  water." 

The  last  line  of  the  first  stanza  is  a  commonplace  foi 
a  Roman  fair  one's  assurance  of  stanchness  which,  il 
analysed,  will  prove  to  be  a  very  safe  averment.  Jove 
the  resistless  was  never  likely  to  put  her  constancy  to 
the  test,  though  Ovid  and  his  brother  poets  fabled 
otherwise.  In  their  view,  as  Theodore  Martin  remarks, 
"the  purity  was  too  sublime  for  belief  which  could 
withstand  the  advances  of  the  sire  of  gods  and  men." 
It  is  something,  then,  to  find  our  lovelorn  poet  retain- 
ing enough  strength  of  mind  to  meet  the  lady's  oath 
by  a  counter-commonplace ;  though  it  must  be  owned 
that  his  good  resolutions  and  steeled  heart  do  not 
count  for  much,  when  the  next  poem  in  Martin's 
arrangement  exhibits  him  not  only  declining,  as  gener- 
osity might  prompt  him,  to  abuse  the  frail  one  him- 
self, but  also  disposed  to  turn  a  sceptical  ear  to  certain 
scandals  which  had  been  brought  to  his  notice : — 


CATULLUS  AND  LESBIA.  29 

"  Could  I  80  madly  love,  and  yet 
Profane  her  name  I  hold  so  dear  ? 
Pshaw  !  j'ou  with  any  libels  let 
Your  pot-house  gossips  cram  your  ear ! " 

Perhaps  to  this  state  of  suspense  and  partial  estrange- 
ment may  be  referable  the  verses  about  Lesbia's  vow 
to  bum  the  *  Annals '  of  Yolusius,  a  wretched  poet 
whom  she  had  professed  to  favour,  if  Catullus  would 
only  return  to  her  arms,  and  cease  brandishing  his 
iambic  thunderbolts.  The  crisis  at  last  has  come 
when  the  idol  has  been  shattered  j  but  the  votary 
cannot  yet  shake  off  the  blind  servitude  which  his 
better  judgment  repudiates.  As  yet  he  can  comfort 
himself  with  those  fallacious  tokens  of  mutual  love 
which  appear  in  his  ninety-second  piece,  and  which 
may  be  given,  for  a  change,  from  Swift's  transla- 
tion : — 

"  Lesbia  for  ever  on  me  rails  ; 
To  talk  of  me  she  never  fails. 
Now,  hang  me,  but  for  all  her  art 
I  find  that  I  have  gained  her  heart. 
My  proof  is  this,  I  plainly  see 
The  case  is  just  the  same  with  me  ; 
I  curse  her  every  hour  sincerely, 
Yet  hang  me  but  I  love  her  dearly  1 " 

Unfortunately,  the  love  has  vitality  and  elements  of 
steadfastness  only  on  the  one  side.  Repeated  sins 
against  it  open  wide  the  eyes  of  Catullus,  till  he  is 
forced  to  own  to  himself  that  the  sole  link  that  is  left 
between  them  is  rather  a  passion  of  wild  desire  than 
the  pvirer  and  tenderer  flame,  which  burned  for  her 


30  CATULLUS. 

whilst  he  believed  her  true.  Here  is  his  confession  of 
the  new  phase  of  his  love,  the  love  that's  merely  a 
madness : — 

"  So  loved  has  woman  never  heen 
As  thou  hast  been  by  me. 
Nor  lover  yet  was  ever  seen 
So  true  as  I  to  thee. 

But  cruel,  cruel  Lesbia,  thon    - 

Hast  by  thy  falsehood  wrought     . 
Such  havoc  in  my  soul,  and  now 

So  madly  'tis  distraught, 

'Twould  prize  thee  not,  though  thou  shouldst  grow 

All  pure  and  chaste  as  ice  ; 
Nor  could  it  cease  to  love  thee,  though 

Besmirched  with  every  vice." — (C.  Ixxv.) 

He  can  now  condone  the  past  for  the  mere  bribe  of  a 
passing  favour.  He  is  one  moment  lifted  to  ecstasies 
by  the  "agreeable  surprise"  of  Lesbia's  unexpected 
kindness,  and  pours  out  his  soul  in  transports  breath- 
ing passionate  prayers  for  a  reunion  which  his  secret 
heart  seems  to  whisper  has  no  elements  of  continuance. 
When  he  sings  in  C.  cix. — 

"  So  may  each  year  that  hurries  o'er  us  find, 

While  others  change  with  life's  still  changing  hue 
The  ties  that  bind  us  now  more  firmly  twined, 
Our  hearts  as  fond,  our  love  as  warm  and  true  "- 

the  petition  is  rendered  of  none  effect  by  the  misgiving 
implied  in  his  fond  hope  that  Lesbia's  professions 
may  be  sincere.     Full  soon  must  the  truth  have  un- 


CATULLUS  AND  LESBIA.  ,  31 

deceived  him,  for  it  must  have  been  after,  but  not 
long  after,  this  revival  of  his  transient  bliss,  that,  on 
the  eve  of  foreign  travel  with  a  view  to  placing  the  sea 
between  himself  and  his  fickle  mistress,  he  commis- 
sioned Fuiius  and  Aurelius,  friends  and  comrades  for 
whom  he  elsewhere  shows  his  regard,  to  carry  her  a 
message  of  plaintive  adieu,  which  reads  like  a  tlirenody 
of  buried  love  : — 

**  Enjoy  thy  paramours,  false  girl ! 
Sweep  gaily  on  in  passion's  whirl ! 
By  scores  caressed,  but  loving  none 
Of  all  the  fools  by  thee  undone  ; 
Nor  give  that  love  a  thought,  which  I 
So  nursed  for  thee  in  days  gone  by, 
Now  by  thy  guile  slain  in  an  hour, 
Even  as  some  little  vdlding  flotoer, 
Tlmt  on  the  meadov^s  border  blushed, 
Is  by  the  passing  ploughshare  crushed." — (C.  xii.) 

The  crushed  hope,  which  is  likened  to  the  frail  flower 
on  the  meadow's  edge  next  the  furrow  (or,  as  Ave  call 
it,  the  "  adland  "),  is  one  of  the  most  graceful  images 
in  the  whole  of  Catullus,  and  speaks  volumes  for  his 
freshness  of  fancy,  whilst  asserting  the  depth  of  his 
passion.  After  this,  there  seems  to  have  remained  for 
the  poet  little  save  pathetic  retrospects,  which  he  can 
scarce  have  hoped  would  wake  remorse.  Perhaps  it 
was  not  the  way  to  quicken  this,  to  plead  hi  formd 
pauperis  his  own  deserts  and  good  deeds  of  happier 
days,  nor  yet  the  fell  disease  which  is  wasting  him 
away,  in  the  form  of  a  broken  lioart.  In  the  7Cth 
poem,  such,  however,  was  one  of  his  last  references  to 


32  CATULLUS. 

the  subject,  a  burden  of  passionate  regrets,  wbich  are 
mingled  with  distinct  admissions  that  ho  knows  Les- 
bia  to  be  wholly  past  reclaiming.  The  whole  tone  of 
it  bespeaks  emancipation  and  return  to  a  free  mind, 
purchased,  however,  at  the  cost  of  an  abiding  heartache. 
But  was  it  not  time  ?  Would  the  poet  have  deserved 
a  niche  in  the  temple  of  fame,  could  he  have  still 
dallied  with  one  of  whom  he  could  write  to  Caelius 
Eufus,  an  old  admirer,  Avho  had  found  her  out  much 
earlier,  in  terms  we  can  only  approach  by  free  trans- 
lation, as  follows  ? — 

"  Our  Lesbia,  Cselius — Lesbia  once  so  bright — 
Lesbia  I  loved  past  self,  and  home,  and  light, 
And  all  my  friends, — has  sunk  i'  tli'  mire  so  low 
That  in  its  lanes  and  alleys  Rome  doth  know 
No  name  so  cheap,  no  fame  so  held  at  naught 
By  coarse-grained  striplings  of  the  basest  sort." 

— (C.  Iviii.)  D. 


CHAPTER  m 

CATULLUS  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  MISSION  TO  BITHYNIA. 

The  fever  of  Catullus  for  Lesbia  asserts  for  itself  a 
tirst  place  in  the  biography  of  Catullus ;  but  the  most 
distinct  chronological  landmark  is  his  mission  in  the 
suite  of  Memraius  to  Bithynia.  Yet,  before  the  date 
of  that  expedition,  and  at  a  very  early  point  of  his 
career, — the  period  of  which,  in  C.  Ixviii.  15-19,  he 
says,  according  to  Mr  Ellis's  "  Longs  and  Shorts  " — 

"  Once,  what  time  white  robes  of  manhood  first  did  array 
me, 

Whiles  in  jollity  life  sported  a  spring  holiday. 

Youth  ran  riot  enow  ;  right  well  she  knows  me,  the  God- 
dess— 

She,  whose  honey  delights  blend  with  a  bitter  annoy," — 

he  probably  wrote  those  poems  of  a  more  or  less  scur- 
rilous and  unproducible  character  which  betray  some 
sort  of  connection  with  his  earlier  and  more  ephemer.d 
loves.  Of  these,  it  would  seem  as  if  some  were  written 
at  Verona  and  in  his  native  district,  as  they  lack,  nidro 
than  other  poems  distinctly  later  in  date,  tlie  urbanity 
which  Catullus  could  assume  upon  occasion.  Some 
of  them  are  simply  reproductions  of  local  gossip  and 
A.C.S.8.,  Yul.  iiL  0 


34  CATULLUS. 

scandal,  the  piquaucy  of  which  belonged  to  the  hour. 
One  (C.  Ixxxii.)  is  a  poetic  appeal  to  a  friend,  if  he 
values  his  friendship,  to  abstain  from  rivalling  him 
in  his  love — a  style  of  appeal  to  which  the  poet  has 
recourse  again  and  again  at  an  after-date;  and  the  two 
most  considerable  are  a  dialogue  between  Catullus  and 
a  door,  which  has  no  good  to  tell  of  its  mistress ;  and 
a  more  presentable  though  still  ambiguous  skit  on  a 
stupid  husband,  who  was  clearly  a  fellow-townsman  of 
the  poet's,  and  had  made  himself  a  butt  by  wedding  a 
young  wife.  The  point  of  this  poem  consists  in  the 
colony  addressed  (which  we  take  to  be  Verona)  having 
had  a  rickety  old  bridge,  of  which  the  citizens  were 
ashamed.  The  poet  takes  occasion  to  make  poetical 
capital  at  the  same  time  out  of  the  popular  longing 
for  a  better  structure,  and  the  ridicule  attaching  to 
an  ill-assorted  union.  He  bargains  for  a  new  bridge 
being  inaugurated,  by  the  precipitation  of  the  "old 
log "  from  the  creaky  arches  of  a  structure  like  him- 
self. It  appears  that  this  bridge  had  been  the  scene 
of  all  the  country  town's  fetes  and  galas ;  and  its  in- 
adequacy for  such  Avork  is  amusingly  compared  with 
the  ill-matching  of  December  and  May,  which  is  illus- 
trated hard  by  it.  A  stave  of  the  version  by  Pro- 
fessor Badham  of  Sydney  will  furnish  so  much  of  a 
taste  of  this  poem  as  the  reader  will  care  to  read  : — 

"  I  should  like  from  your  bridge  just  to  cant  off  the  log, 
For  the  chance  that  his  rapid  descent  to  the  bog 
Might  his  lethargy  jog  ; 
And  the  sloth  of  his  mind, 
Being  left  there  behind, 


TEE  MISSION  TO  BITUYNIA.  35 

In  the  quagmire  should  stay, 
As  the  mule  leaves  his  shoe  in  the  glutinous  clay." 

(C.  xvii.) 

But  it  is  to  a  period  between  this  and  the  journey  to 
Bithynia  that  we  refer  at  least  some  of  his  livelier 
trifles,  written  to  friends,  or  against  foes  and  rivals ; 
such  as  the  banter  of  Flavins,  whose  bachelor  lodgings 
he  suspects  could  tell  a  tale  to  explain  the  rich-dis- 
tilled perfumes  tilling  the  room  ;  the  invitation  to 
Tibullus  to  come  and  dine,  and  bring  with  him  not 
only  his  chere  aniie,  but  also  the  dinner  and  wine — 
in  fact,  all  but  the  unguents.  The  excuse  for  this 
quaint  mode  of  entertaining  is  one  which  gives  what 
colour  there  is  to  the  theory  that  the  poet's  tour 
abroad  was  to  recruit  his  fortune.     He  writes — 

"  But  bring  all  these  you  must,  I  vow, 
If  you're  to  find  yourself  in  clover, 
For  your  Catullus'  purse  just  now 
With  spiders'  webs  is  running  over.** 

This  apportionment  of  a  picnic  entertainment  was 
just  the  reverse,  it  seems,  of  one  to  which  Horace 
(Odes,  B.  iv.  12)  invited  a  certain  Virgil,  who  was  to 
bring  the  unguent,  whilst  his  host  found  the  wine ; 
but  Catullus  tells  us  iu  this  case  it  was  such  super- 
lative unguent — 

"  Unguent,  that  the  Queen 
Of  beauty  gave  my  lady-love,  I  ween  ; 
So,  when  in  its  sweet  perfume  you  rei)ose, 
You'll  wish  that  your  whole  body  were  a  nose.** 

— (C  xiii.) 


86  CATULLUS. 

To  realise  this,  we  sliould  bear  in  mind  the  anoient 
esteem  for  chaplets,  rose-leaves,  and  perfumes  of  all 
kinds  at  the  banquet,  and  the  expense  to  which  Roman 
hosts  would  go  to  gratify  this  taste.  To  judge  by 
Martial  (whom  Theodore  Martin  quotes  on  this  pas- 
sage), it  sometimes  went  to  the  length  of  the  banquet 
striking  the  guests  as  much  more  a  concern  of  the 
nose  than  of  the  mouth  or  palate.  Perhaps  it  is  no 
bad  thing  that  we  have  gone  back  to  a  more  natural 
arrangement.  Another  glimpse  at  a  dinner  or  supper 
at  which  the  poet  assisted  may  have  belonged  to  this 
period,  and  at  any  rate  is  amusing  and  characteristic.  It 
is  in  a  squib  upon  one  Marrucinus  Asinius,  apparently 
a  brother  of  Horace's  and  Virgil's  friend,  the  poet- 
statesman  Asinius  Pollio,  imputing  to  him  a  petty 
larceny  of  which  we  have  heard  in  modern  boarding- 
houses,  and  which  many  know,  to  their  sorrow,  is  at 
least  matched  by  the  modem  disregard  of  meum  and 
tuum  in  the  matter  of  umbrellas  and  wraps.  It  was 
in  jest,  of  course — but  sorry,  ill-understood  jest,  ac- 
cording to  Catullus — that  this  worthy  had  a  knack  of 
purloining  his  brother  guests'  napkins  whilst  at  meat ; 
and  what  made  matters  worse  was,  that  the  convives 
of  old  brought  these  napkins  with  them,  and  if  they 
missed  them  during  the  meal,  were  reduced  to  an  in- 
convenience which  we  who  don't  eat  with  our  lingers 
cannot  realise.  Catullus  begins  by  telling  this  low 
joker  that  his  fun  is  not  such  as  gentlemen  under- 
stand— fun  which  he  is  sure  his  refined  and  Avitty 
brother,  Pollio,  would  pay  a  talent  rather  than  have 
tacked  to  the  name  of  any  of  his  kin.     Eut  ho  adds 


TffS  MISSION  TO  BITHYNIA.  37 

that  the  reason  why  he  insists  on  the  napkin's  restitu- 
tion, on  pain  of  a  thorough  lampooning,  is  this  : — 

"  'Tis  not  for  its  value  I  prize  it — don't  sneer  ! 
But  as  a  memento  of  friends  who  are  dear. 
'Tis  one  of  a  set  that  FabuUus  from  Spain 
And  Verannius  sent  me,  a  gift  from  the  twain  ; 
So  the  napkins,  of  course,  are  as  dear  to  Catullus 
As  the  givers,  Verannius  himself  and  Fabullus." 

— (C.  xii.) 

The  names  of  these  two  boon  companions  of  our  poet, 
by  the  way,  are  a  slight  support  to  the  theory  of 
"  cobwebs  in  the  pocket  or  purse  "  before  alluded  to. 
Their  easy  lives  and  pleasant  manners  and  dinners-out 
at  Eome  had  no  doubt  rendered  it  a  necessity  on  their 
parts  to  get  upon  some  praetor's  staff;  and  so  they 
had  been  to  Spain  with  Cnaeus  Calpurnius  Piso,  a  com- 
missariat officer  with  praetorian  powers,  whom  collateral 
evidence  shows  to  have  been  a  selfish  and  needy  volup- 
tuary, whose  menage  was  mean  and  shabby,  and  who 
fleeced  his  suite  as  well  as  his  province.  It  is  to  tho 
first  of  this  pair  that  Catullus  addresses  a  poem,  which 
represents  him  favourably  in  the  r6le  of  friend,  and 
from  which  one  gathers  an  idea  of  a  literary  lounger's 
interest  in  travellers'  tales  (C.  ix.) — 

"  Dearest  of  all,  Verannius  !    O  my  friend  ! 

Hast  tliou  come  back  from  tliy  long  pilgrimage, 
With  brothers  twain  in  soxil  thy  days  to  8])end, 
And  by  thy  liearth-fire  cheer  thy  mother's  age  ? 

And  art  thou  truly  come  ?    Oh,  welcome  news  ! 

And  I  shall  see  thee  safe,  and  hear  once  more 
Thy  tales  of  Spain,  its  tribes,  its  feats,  its  views, 

ilow  as  of  old  from  thy  exhaustless  store. 


38  CATULLUS. 

And  I  shall  gaze  into  thine  eyes  again  ! 

And  I  again  shall  fold  thee  to  my  breast ! 
Oh,  you  who  deem  yourselves  most  blest  of  men. 

Which  of  you  all  like  unto  me  is  blest  ? " 

It  is  hard  to  conceive  a  truer  or  heartier  welcome 
home ;  but,  as  a  sample  of  our  poet's  lighter  and 
more  satiric  vein,  should  be  read  alongside  of  it  his 
lines  to  the  two  adventurers  on  their  joint  return, 
replete  with  kind  inquiries  for  their  pocket-linings, 
Catullus  has  a  suspicion  how  things  have  gone  : — 

"  Your  looks  are  lean,  your  luggage  light ! 
What  cheer  1  what  cheer  ?    Has  all  gone  right  ?** 

He  goes  on  to  surmise  that  they  have  disbursed  con- 
siderably more  than  they  netted ;  and  branches  oflf 
into  some  not  unnatural  radicalism  about  the  folly  of 
**  courting  noble  friends,"  and  the  desirability  of  put- 
ting no  trust  in  patrons.  By  this  time,  he  had  him- 
self made  trial  of  Memmius — for  he  does  not  scruple  to 
classify  that  self-seeking  praetor  with  the  broken  reed 
on  whom  his  friends  had  depended ;  and,  in  the  close 
of  the  poem  we  quote,  he  speaks  plainly  : — 

"  0  Memmius,  by  your  scurvy  spite. 
You  placed  me  in  an  evil  plight ! 
And  you,  my  friends,  for  aught  I  see, 
Have  suffered  very  much  like  me  ; 
For  knave  as  Memmius  was,  I  fear 
That  he  in  Piso  had  his  peer." — (C.  xxviii.) 

There  are  several  unattached   pieces   of  Catullus, 
wliicli  we  might  assign  to  a  date  prior  to  his  Bithynian 


THE  MISSIOX  TO  BITHYNIA.  39 

expedition —  to  wit,  the  lines  to  his  Cup-bearer,  memor- 
able as  his  sole  express  drinking-song  (C.  xxvii.),  and 
the  Mortgage  (C.  xxvi.);  the  one  distinct  in  its  rather 
youthful  advocacy  of  neat  potations — the  other  a  pos- 
sible reiteration  of  temporary  impecuniosity,  though,  as 
has  been  said  above,  this  theory  must  not  be  pressed  too 
far.  Anyhow,  he  was  minded  to  join  the  propraetor 
Memmius's  train,  and  swell  as  his  poet  for  tlie  nonce 
the  "  little  Rome "  which  he  gathered  round  him  in 
the  province.  He  may  easily  have  been  light  of  purse 
after  so  long  a  bondage  to  Lesbia ;  he  may  well  liave 
hoped  to  dissipate  his  cliagrins  by  the  variety  oi" 
foreign  travel :  so  to  Bithynia  went  Catullus,  with  his 
friends,  Helvius  Cinna,  Furins,  and  Aurelius,  in  the 
spring  of  57  B.C.  It  has  been  told  already  how  he 
despatched  his  parting  words  to  Lesbia  by  the  last- 
named  pair.  To  Bitliynia  he  sped  ;  and  his  journey, 
sojourn,  and  return,  supply  a  landmark,  around  which 
a  tolerable  amount  of  his  extant  poems  may  be  clus- 
tered. It  is  not  indeed  directly  that  we  di.scover  what 
a^  failure  it  was  in  a  commercial  point  of  view.  By 
putting  two  and  two  together,  we  collect  that  he  spent 
a  year  in  the  proprajtor's  suite,  and  then  visited,  on 
the  home  route,  Pontus,  the  Propontis,  Thrace, 
Rhodes,  the  Cyclades,  and  the  cities  of  Greece,  arriv- 
ing in  due  course,  by  way  of  the  Adriatic,  and  by  the 
canal  which  connected  the  Adigo  with  the  Mincio,  at 
his  own  estate  and  villa  of  Sirmio.  In  one  of  his 
best-known  and  sweetest  poems  he  commemorates  the 
pinnace  wherein  he  performed  the  voyage;  and  in 
another,  as  sweet,  his  feelings  at  reaching  "  homc^ 


40  CATULLUS. 

STveet  home,"  rendered  dearer  by  so  many  months  of 
absence.  The  piece  which  lets  us  into  the  history  of 
the  stay-abroad  is  a  lively  picture  of  Eonian  gay  life, 
and  of  a  matter-of-fact  gay  lady,  the  chhe  amie  of 
the  poet's  friend  Varus,  in  whose  company  Catullus 
found  it  difficult  to  maintain  a  wise  reserve  as  to 
the  extent  of  his  shifts  and  ill-luck  in  the  Bithynian 
venture.  She,  like  every  one  else,  was  agog  to  know 
how  it  had  succeeded  : — 

"  Is  gold  so  rife  there  as  they  say ; 
And  how  much  did  you  pocket,  eh  1" 

The  poet  at  first  was  pretty  explicit : — 

«  Neither  I, 
Nor  yet  the  praetor,  nor  his  suite, 
Had  in  that  province  luck  to  meet 
With  anything  that,  do  our  best, 
Could  add  one  feather  to  our  nest. 
Our  chances,  too,  were  much  decreased. 
The  praetor  being  such  a  beast. 
And  caring  not  one  doit,  not  he, 
For  any  of  his  company." 

Thinking  this  admission  enough,  Catullus  would  fain 
have  turned  the  subject  before  the  lady  discovered  the 
utter  barrenness  of  his  return.  But  this  was  not  her 
idea.  Had  he  not  brought  home  "  a  litter  and  bearers  "  ] 
Every  one  knew  they  grew  in  Bithynia.  The  poor 
poet  tried  to  make  believe  that  he  had  ;  and  her  next 
move  was  to  ask  the  loan  of  them  to  go  to  the  shrine 
of  Serapis.  What  was  he  to  do,  when  he  had  not  the 
ghost  of  even  one  brawny  knave  to  carry  his  truckle- 


THE  MISSION  TO  BITHYNIA.  41 

Led  ?  He  backs  out  of  it  with  the  lame  excuse  that 
tlie  bearers  are  scarcely  his  to  lend,  being  Caius  Cinna's 
purchase,  though  what  was  Cinna's  was  his  friend's 
also  ;  but,  ends  the  poet,  driven  into  a  corner — 

"  But,  madam,  suffer  me  to  state, 
You're  plaguily  importunate, 
To  press  one  so  extremely  hard, 
He  cannot  speak  but  by  the  card." — (C.  xi.) 

Not  much  evidence,  it  may  be  said,  of  the  fruits,  or  want 
of  fruit,  of  a  year  in  the  provinces.  At  any  rate,  there  . 
is  proof  that  a  second  sprijig  found  the  poet  on  the 
wing,  rejoicing  to  be  honisAvard  bound.  He  is  going 
to  see  all  he  can  of  famous  cities  by  the  way ;  and  it 
does  not  seem  as  if  he  had  persuaded  any  of  his  com- 
rades to  bear  him  company,  though  it  has  been  sur- 
mised without  much  proof  that  his  brother  was  of  the 
number.  Perhaps  they  had  fared  even  worse,  and 
could  ill  afford  to  pay  their  share  of  the  expenses  of 
the  home  route.  The  "Farewell  toBithynia "  is  so  fresh 
and  tender,  and  its  last  lines  breathe  a  misgiving  so 
soon  to  be  realised,  if  the  theory  to  which  we  alluded 
about  his  brother  be  true,  that  they  deservo  quota- 
tion : — 

"  A  balmy  warmth  comes  wafted  o'er  the  seas ; 

The  savage  howl  of  wintry  tempests  drear 

In  the  sweet  whispers  of  the  western  breeze 

Has  died  away  ; — the  spring,  the  spring  is  here  ! 

Now  quit,  Catullus,  quit  the  Phrygian  plain, 

Where  days  of  sweltering  sunshine  soon  shall  crown 

Nicaea's  fields  with  wealth  of  golden  grain, 
And  fly  to  Asia's  cities  of  renown. 


42  CATULLUS. 

Already  through  each  nerve  a  flutter  runs 

Of  eager  hope,  that  longs  to  be  away ; 
Already,  'neath  the  light  of  other  suns, 

•My  feet,  new-winged  for  travel,  yearn  to  stray. 

And  you,  ye  band  of  comrades  tried  and  true, 
Who  side  by  side  went  forth  from  home,  farewell  I 

How  far  apart  the  paths  shall  carry  you 

Back  to  your  native  shore — ah,  who  can  tell  ? " 

— (C.  xlvi.) 

What  a  suggestive  thought  for  the  breaking-up  of  a 
year's  daily  familiar  intercourse,  with  the  jests,  con- 
fabulations, lounges,  tiffs,  confidences,  to  which  it  has 
given  rise  !  Once  interrupted,  will  this  conclave  ever 
reassemble  in  its  integrity  ?  Of  those  that  meet,  how 
many  will  retain  their  like-minded ness  ?  how  few  will 
not  have  "  suffered  a  sea  change  "  that  has  made  them 
other  than  they  were  in  heart,  tone,  and  affections  ?  To 
two,  we  know,  of  this  company,  Furius  and  Aurelius, 
our  poet  wrote  a  rather  savage  retort  in  later  years  for 
a  strong  expression  upon  the  freedom  and  licence 
of  his  life  and  verses  ;  and  whilst  he  attempted  the 
lame  defence  of  an  unchaste  Muse  on  the  score  of 
a  decent  life  (as  to  which  he  had  much  better,  we 
suspect,  have  said  little  or  nothing),  indignantly 
objected  to  the  criticism  of  his  moral  character  by  a 
couple  of  roues  sunk  as  low  in  profligate  living  as  he 
hints  they  are.  To  tell  the  truth,  the  poet's  mode  of 
life  at  all  times  must  have  been  such  as  to  render  it 
the  only  feasible  course  for  him  to  fall  back  upon  a 
lame  and  impotent  tu  quoque.  But  he  may  have  been 
in  no  mood  for  their  old  jokes  and  innuendos,  however 


THE  MISSION  TO  BITHTNIA.  43 

familiar  as  edge-tools  to  his  earlier  nature,  when  this 
same  change  of  scene  had  brought  him  face  to  face 
with  personal  ill-health  and  with  a  beloved  brother's 
death.  "We  cannot  exactly  time  this  last  event,  which 
took  place  in  the  Troad ;  or  it  might  seem  as  though, 
ill  the  last  passage  quoted,  our  poet  had  been  endowed 
with  a  spirit  of  prophecy.  Certain  it  is  that  the 
premature  loss  of  him-^, 

**  Whom  now,  far,  far  away,  not  laid  to  rest 
Amid  familiar  tombs  with  kindred  dust, 
Fell  Troy  detains,  Troy  impious  and  im  blest, 
'Neath  its  unhallowed  plain  ignobly  thrust  " 

— (C.  Ixviii.  97-100) 

wrought  a  distinct  change  of  tone  in  the  effusions  of 
Catullus,  thenceforth  more  directed  towards  the  at- 
traction of  friendly  sympathy  than  the  youthful  and 
hot-headed  concoction  of  scurrilous  and  offensive  lam- 
poons. With  a  vaguely-ascertained  chronology,  it  is 
not  easy  to  prove  this  by  examples  ;  but  it  is  con- 
sistent with  a  tender  and  affectionate  nature  that  such 
a  change  should  have  supervened,  though  it  cannot 
be  maintained  that  there  were  no  recurrences  to  the 
earlier  and  more  pungent  vein.  One  or  two  glimpses 
of  Catullus  as  a  master,  and  in  his  simpler  and  more 
domestic  relations,  will  fitly  end  the  present  chapter, 
and  give  a  meet  conclusion  to  the  Bithynian  voyage. 
"What  pleasanter  pride  of  ownership  ever  found  its 
vent  in  song  than  our  poet's  dedication  of  his  pinnace 
after  it  had  done  its  work,  and  conveyed  him  home 
into  the  Lago  di  Garda? — 


i4  CATULLUS. 

"  Yon  pinnace,  friends,  now  hauled  ashore, 
Boasts  that  for  speed  none  ever  more 
Excelled,  or  'gainst  her  could  avail 
In  race  of  oars,  or  eke  with  sail. 
This,  she  avers,  nor  Adria's  bay 
Nor  Cyclad  isles  will  dare  gainsay — 
Fierce  Thrace,  or  Rhodes  of  ample  fame. 
Or  Pontus  with  ill-omened  name  ; 
Where  whilom  it,  a  pinnace  now, 
Was  a  maned  tree  on  mountain-brow  : 
Yea,  from  its  mane  on  tall  Cytorus 
Soft  music  sighed  in  breeze  sonorous. 
Whose  box-clad  heights,  Amastris  too, 
Avouch  this  origin  as  true  ; 
And  witness  what  my  pinnace  vows, 
It  first  saw  light  on  yonder  brows — 
First  dipt  its  oars  in  neighbouring  sea, 
And  then  through  wild  waves  carried  me, 
Its  master,  in  its  stanch,  smart  craft, 
Breeze  foul  or  fair,  or  wind  right  aft. 
No  calls  to  gods  of  sea  or  shore 
She  lifted  ;  and,  the  voyage  o'er. 
From  farthest  tracts  of  brine,  to  rest, 
Came  to  our  smooth  lake's  placid  breast. 
'Tis  over  now.     Her  mission  done, 
Here  she  enjoys  a  rest  well  won. 
And  dedicates  her  timbers  here 
To  Castor  and  to  Castor's  peer." — (D.) 

The  fascination  of  the  piece,  of  which  this  is  a  tran- 
script, has  been  so  widely  felt,  that  it  has  yielded 
itself  to  dozens  of  clever  and  graceful  parodies  and 
imitations  at  various  times.  One  of  the  most  recent 
is  in  a  little  volume  of  'Lays  from  Latin  Lyres,' 
recently  published  at  Oxford,  where  the  pinnace  re- 


THE  MlSSIOy  TO  BITHYJSIA.  45 

appears  as  an  Oxford  racing-boat,  dear  to  its  own 
college  for  victories  innumerable  over  such  rivals  as 

"  Brasenose  of  boating  fame, 
Or  Exeter  with  crimson  oar. 
Or  Balliol  men  from  Scotia's  shore." 

But  the  intrinsic  charm  of  the  original  consists  in  the 
fond  ownership  which  breathes  in  it ;  and  the  same  is 
the  case  with  the  poet's  address  to  Sirmio,  his  marine 
estate,  on  his  return  from  his  voyage  in  it,  which  we 
give  in  the  version  of  Professor  Eobinson  Ellis  : — 

"  0  thou  of  islands  jewel,  and  of  half-islands, 
Fair  Simiio,  whatever  o'er  the  lake's  clear  rim 
Or  waste  of  ocean  Neptune  holds,  a  twofold  power: 

"What  joy  have  I  to  see  thee  !  and  to  gaze,  what  glee  ! 

Scarce  yet  believing  Thynia  past,  the  fair  champaign 
Bithynian,  yet  in  safety  thee  to  greet  once  more. 
From  cares  no  more  to  part  us — where  is  any  joy  like 
this? 

When  drops  the  sotU  her  fardel,  as  the  travel-tired, 

World  -  weary  waruTrer  touches   home,    returns,   sinks 

down 
In  joy  to  slumber  on  the  bed  desired  so  long — 

This  meed,  this  only,  counts  for  e'en  an  age  of  toil. 

O  take  a  welcome,  lovely  Sirmio,  thy  lord's. 

And  greet  him  happy;   greet  him  all  the  Lydian 
lake: 
Laugh  out  whatever  laughter  at  the  hearth  rings 
clear." 

Mr  Ellis's  expression  for  the  last  line  of  the  Latin  seta 


46  CJTULLUS. 

at  rest  a  claim  of  various  competitors,  and  realises  the 
gist  of  the  verse,  though  the  metre  is  very  hard  to  ac- 
custom one's  self  to.  Without  adopting  Landor's  emen- 
dations, we  may  quote  his  illustration  of  the  concluding 
verses  of  this  piece  :  "Catullus  here  calls  on  Sirmio  to 
rejoice  in  his  return,  and  invites  the  waves  of  the  lake 
to  laugh.  Whoever  has  seen  this  beautiful  expanse  of 
water,  under  its  bright  sun  and  gentle  breezes,  will 
understand  the  poet's  expression — he  wiU  have  seen 
the  winds  dance  and  laugh."  The  critic,  however, 
based  an  emendation  of  "  Ludise  "  for  "  Lydiae,"  "  dan- 
cing "  for  "  Lydian,"  on  his  bit  of  criticism.  In  another 
poem  (C.  xliv.)  of  a  humorous  character,  we  see  the 
same  kindlier  side  of  the  poet's  nature,  in  his  affection 
for  his  Sabine  and  Tiburtine  farm.  The  Ivcale  of 
this  was  one  appreciated  by  Horace,  and  a  retreat 
which  Catullus  must  have  thought  himself  lucky  in 
having  at  command.  He  playfully  hints  that  his 
friends  will  best  please  him  if  they  dub  it  Tiburtine, 
though  there  was  no  doubt  that  its  precise  site,  the 
banks  of  the  Anio,  made  it  an  open  question  to  which 
district  it  should  be  tacked ;  and  he  pays  it  a  tribute 
of  gratitude  for  enabling  him  to  shake  off  a  pestilential 
catarrh,  which  appears  to  have  had  its  beginning  in 
that  seat  of  all  evils,  the  stomach.  A  desire  of  epicu- 
rean experiences  and  of  a  dinner  with  a  certain  Sestius, 
who  united  the  reputation  of  a  brilliant  host  with  that 
of  a  dull  orator,  had  led  the  evil  genius  of  Catullus  to 
a  banquet,  where  he  was  bored  to  death  by  the  recital 
of  his  entertainer's  oration  against  one  Caius  Antius ; 
and  this  proved  a  penance  so  giievous  that  the  poet 


THE  MISSION  TO  BITHTNIA.  Al 

humorously  declares  it  gave  him  an  ague.  He  fell 
a-coughiiig  incontinently,  and  there  was  nothing  for 
it^  he  adds — 

"  UntU  I  fled, 
And  cured  within  thy  cosy  breast 
Myself  with  nettle-juice  and  rest." 

In  the  same  playful  vein,  Catullus  records  his  thanks 
to  the  nurse  who  has  brought  him  round  again — his 
farm  pei-sonified — for  letting  him  off  so  lightly  for  a 
temporary  fickleness ;  and  makes  a  facetious  promise 
that  if  ever  again  he  lets  the  love  of  good  living  entice 
him  into  such  a  purgatory,  he'll  invoke  these  shivei-s 
and  this  liacking  cough — not  on  himself,  oh  dear  no  ! — 
hut  on  the  ill-advised  host  who  only  invites  his  friends 
when  he  wants  to  air  his  lungs  and  speeches. 

Here,  it  will  be  said,  crops  out,  amidst  strong  home 
instincts,  the  old  and  strong  leaven  of  satire  and  lam- 
pooning. But  if  we  turn  to  the  crowning  grief  of  the 
life  of  Catullus,  it  will  be  seen  how  severe  and  absorb- 
ing is  his  tender  grief.  Here  is  the  outpouring  of  his 
heart  at  the  grave  in  the  Troad  : — 

"  In  pious  duty,  over  lands  and  seas, 
Come  I,  deal*  brother,  to  thine  exsequies  ; 
Bent  on  such  gifts  as  love  in  death  doth  pay, 
Fraught  with  last  words  to  cheer  thee  on  thy  way ; 
In  vain.    For  fate  hath  torn  thee  from  my  side, 
Brother,  unmeet  so  early  to  have  died. 
Yet,  oh  !  such  offerings  as  ancestral  use 
Assigns  the  tomb,  may  haply  find  excuse  : 
Yea,  take  these  gifts  fraternal  tears  bedew. 
And  take,  oh  take,  my  loving,  last  adieu  ! " 

— (C.  ci.)  D. 


48  CATULLUS. 

But  with  affectionate  natures  like  that  of  Catullus,  the 
memory  is  not  silenced  by  the  barrier  which  divides 
the  yearning  spirit  from  its  kind.  The  last  adieu  is  a 
figure  of  speech  which  a  thousand  reminiscences  falsify. 
The  forlorn  brother  tries  to  solace  himself  with  tender 
allusions  to  his  bereavement  whenever  he  is  sending  a 
missive  to  some  congenial  spirit,  or  inditing  epistles 
of  sympathy  to  a  patron  in  kindred  sorrow.  What 
can  be  sweeter  than  his  lines  to  Hortalus  which 
accompanied  the  translation  of  his  Alexandrian  model, 
Calliniachus's  poem  on  "  Berenice's  Hair,"  to  which  we 
shall  have  to  refer  again ;  or  his  allusion  to  the  same 
loss  in  the  elegiacs  to  Manlius,  when  he  undertook  the 
difficult  task  of  consoling  with  an  elegy  one  whom  he 
gifted  erewhile  with  the  most  glowing  of  epithalamia? 
There  is  one  allusion  also  to  the  same  topic  in  the 
verses  to  M.  Acilius  Glabrio,  breathing  the  same  acute 
sense  of  desolation,  and  deploring  the  destiny  that 
ordains  their  ashes  to  lie  beneath  the  soils  of  different 
continents.  It  may  suffice  to  cite  Theodore  Martin's 
version  of  the  allusion,  in  the  lines  to  Hortalus,  to 
the  brother  so  soundly  sleeping  by  the  Ehsetean  shore 
in  Trojan  earth  : — 

"Oh  !  is  thy  voice  for  ever  hushed  and  still  ? 

O  brother,  dearer  far  than  life,  shall  I 
Ijchold  thee  never  ?     But  in  sooth  I  will 

For  ever  love  thee,  as  in  days  gone  by ; 

And  ever  through  my  songs  shall  ring  a  cry 
Sad  with  thy  death — sad  as  in  thickest  shade 

or  intertangled  boughs  the  melody. 
Which  by  the  woful  Daulian  bird  is  made, 
tjobbing  for  Itvs  dead  her  wail  tlirough  all  the  glade." 

—(0.  Ixv.) 


THE  MISSION  TO  BITHYNIA.  49 

In  the  like  allusion  of  the  poem  to  Manilas  we  are 
told  furtlier  that  the  brother's  death  has  had  the  effect 
of  turning  mirth  to  gloom,  taking  light  and  sun  from 
the  dwelling,  and  robbing  home  of  the  charm  of  mu- 
tual studies  and  fraternal  unity.  Even  in  modern 
times,  a  recent  poet  of  the  second  rank  is  perhaps  best 
remembered  by  his  touching  lyrics  on  "  My  Brother's 
Grave,"  and  may  have  got  the  first  breath  of  inspira- 
tion from  the  Roman  poet,  who,  as  he  tells  us  in  the 
67th  poem,  retired  for  self-converse  and  the  society  of 
his  despair  to  the  rural  retreats  of  Verona.  Perhaps 
in  such  isolation  it  is  well  to  be  broken  in  upon ; 
perhaps  it  is  the  sense  that  comes  upon  one,  after  a 
course  of  enforced  loneliness,  that  one's  books,  treasures, 
haunts  (as  with  Catullus)  are  in  town,  that  makes  the 
mourner  see  the  folly  of  unavailing  sorrow,  and  strive 
to  shake  it  off,  tliough,  in  liis  case,  with  too  little 
health  for  achieving  his  task  successfully. 


A.C.S.S.,  voL  ilL 


CHAPTER    IV. 

CATULLUS   AMONG   MEN    OF   LITERATURE. 

Though  we  have  just  seen  Catullus  bidding  fair  to 
sink  into  despondency,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  this  state  of  spirits  at  once,  or  ever  entirely,  shut 
out  gayer  moods  upon  occasion,  much  less  that  it  put 
an  end  to  social  intercourse  with  those  literary  com- 
peers of  whom  in  his  brief  life  the  poet  had  no  lack. 
When  at  Rome  he  contrived  to  amuse  himself  by  no 
means  tristely,  if  we  may- accept  the  witness  of  one  or 
tAvo  lively  pieces  that  seem  to  belong  to  the  period 
after  the  Bithynian  campaign,  and  to  the  closing  years 
of  his  career.  One  stray  piece — "To  Camerius"  (C.  liv.) 
— gives  a  little  hint  of  the  company  he  kept,  and  the 
manner  in  which  his  days  were  frittered  away,  even 
when  a  cloud  had  overshadowed  his  life.  It  is  a  ' 
playful  rallying  of  an  associate  of  lighter  vein  upon 
the  nature  of  his  engagements  and  rendezvous,  and 
affords  a  glimpse  of  Roman  topography  not  so 
common  in  Catullus  as  could  have  been  wished. 
Wishing  to  "track  his  friend  to  his  haunts,  the  poet 
says  he  sought  him  in  the  Campus  Minor,  which 
would  seem  to  have  been  a  distinct  division  of  the 


CATULLUS  AMONG  MEN  OF  LITERATURE.       51 

Campus  Martins,  in  the  bend  of  the  Tiber  tp  tlie 
north  of  the  Circus  Flamiuius,  and  to  have  repre- 
sented a  familiar  portion  of  the  great  Roman  park 
and  race -course.  In  the  Circus,  also,  and  in  the 
book-shops,  in  the  hallowed  Temple  of  Capitoline 
Jupiter  at  no  great  distance  from  the  same  public 
resort,  as  Avell  as  in  the  Promenade  and  Portico  of 
Pompey  the  Great,  lying  to  the  south  of  the  Campus 
Martius,  and  attached  to  the  Theatre  of  Pompey  built 
by  him  in  his  second  consulship  b.c.  55  (and  so  now 
in  the  height  of  fashion  and  novelty),  Catullus  has 
sought  his  friend,  but  can  nowhere  get  an  inkling  of 
him.  But  for  the  mention  of  the  book-stalls,  we  might 
have  passed  by  the  whereabouts  of  Camerius,  as  the 
nature  of  the  poet's  inquiries  implies  that  the  truant 
■was  pleasantly  engaged  in  a  congenial  flirtation,  which 
he  had  the  good  sense  to  keep  to  himself.  The  sequel, 
however,  of  the  verses  of  Catullus  goes  to  prove  that 
he  was  himself  alive  to  the  same  amusements  as  his 
friend,  and  would  have  been  well  pleased  to  have  been 
of  his  company.  The  grievance  was  that  ihe  search 
proved  fruitless.  His  Alexandrian  myth -lore  fur- 
nishes him  half-a-dozen  standards  of  fleetness  to 
wliich  he  professes  to  have  attained — Talus,  Ladas, 
Perseus,  Pegasus,  and  the  steeds  of  Khesus — and  yet 
he  has  not  overtaken  Camerius,  but  had  to  chew  the 
cud  of  his  disappointment,  besides  being  tired  and 
footsore. 

But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  argue  systematic 
frivolity  from  casual  glimpses  of  days  wasted,  upon  a 
lively  poet's  own  showing.     On  the  other  side  of  the 


52  CATULLUS. 

scale  may  be  counted  the  names  of  learned  and  witty- 
contemporaries — known  like  himself  to  fame — with 
whom  Catullus  was  in  familiar  intercourse.  Fore- 
most perhaps  we  should'  set  Cornelius  Nepos  and 
Cicero  :  the  former,  because  to  him  Catullus  dedicates 
his  collected  volume ;  the  latter,  for  the  very  compli- 
mentary terms  in  which  he  rates  the  chief  of  orators, 
albeit  the  sorriest  of  poets.  Lest  there  should  be  any 
doubt  in  the  face  of  internal  evidence  as  to  the  iden- 
tity of  Cornelius  with  him  of  the  surname  familiar  to 
schoolboys,  it  may  be  noted  that  this  is  set  at  rest  by 
a  later  poet,  Ausonius ;  but  the  verses  of  dedication 
evince  a  lively  interest  in  the  historian  and  biographer, 
whose  'Epitome  of  Universal  History'  has  not  sur- 
vived the  wreck  of  ages,  whilst  the  lives  which  we 
read,  with  the  exception  of  that  of  Atticus,  are  simply 
an  epitome  of  the  work  of  Nepos.  The  gracefully- 
turned  compliment  of  the  poet,  however,  will  show 
the  store  he  sets  by  his  friend's  literary  labours  and 
erudition  —  and  it  is  best  represented  by  Theodore 
Martin : — 

"  My  little  volume  is  complete, 
Fresli  pumice-polisJied,  and  as  neat 

As  book  need  wish  to  be  ; 
And  now,  what  patron  shall  I  choose 
For  these  gay  sallies  of  my  Muse  ? 

Cornelius,  whom  but  thee  ? 

For  though  they  are  but  trifles,  thou 
Some  value  didst  to  them  allow, 
And  that  from  thee  is  fame, 


CATULLUS  AMONG  MEN  OF  LITERATURE.       53 

Who  daredst  in  thy  three  volumes'  space, 
Alone  of  all  Italians,  trace 
Our  history  and  name. 

Great  Jove  !  what  lore,  what  labour  there  I 
Then  take  this  little  book,  whate'er 

Of  good  or  bad  it  store  ; 
And  grant,  oh  guardian  Muse,  that  it 
May  keep  the  flavour  of  its  wit 

A  century  or  more  ! " 

The  reference  to  the  polish  of  the  pumice-stone  in 
the  first  verse  may  be  simply  metaphorical,  and  de- 
signed to  express  the  general  neatness  of  the  work  as 
poetry;  but  this  sense  must  not  be  pressed  too  far, 
when  we  remember  the  enhancement  of  an  author's 
affection  for  his  own  productions,  which  consists  in 
their  neat  turning  out  and  getting  up.  The  ancient 
parchments  underwent  no  small  amount  of  pumice- 
polishing  on  the  inside  for  the  purpose  of  taking  the 
ink,  and  on  the  outside,  with  the  addition  of  colour, 
for  a  finish.  Our  poet  might  indulge  in  a  reasonable 
complacency  when  he  sent  a  presentation  copy  to  Cor- 
nelius Nepos,  which  externally  and  internally  laid 
equal  claim  to  neatness.  It  was  not  so  always,  as  Ave 
find  him  telling  his  friend  Varus,  in  reference  to  the 
poetaster  SufFenus,  who  had  a  knack  of  rattling  off 
any  number  of  verses,  and  then,  without  laying  them 
by  for  correction  and  revision,  launching  them  upon 
the  public  in  the  smartest  and  gayest  of  covers.  Of 
this  scribbler's  mania  he  writes — 

*'  Ten  thousand  lines  and  more,  I  wot, 
He  keeps  fair-copied — scribbled  not 


64  CATULLUS. 

On  palimpsest — but  ripe  for  view ; 
Red  strings,  spruce  covers,  paper  new 
And  superfine,  with  parchment  lined, 
And  by  the  pumice-stone  refined." 

— (C,  xxii)  D. 

"Whatever  may  have  been  Catullus's  weakness,  he  at 
least  would  have  turned  out  verses  that  did  not  de- 
pend for  acceptance  on  their  cover.  To  his  intimacy 
with  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero,  despite  the  hindrances 
which  it  might  have  been  supposed  to  risk  on  the 
supposition  that  Lesbia  was  Clodia,  Catullus  has  left 
distinct  witness  in  the  brief  but  pointed  epigram  : — 

"  Most  eloquent  of  all  the  Roman  race 

That  is,  hath  been,  or  shall  be  afterward. 
To  thee  Catullus  tenders  highest  grace, 
Sorriest  of  poets  in  his  own  regard  ; 
Yea,  sorriest  of  poets,  aye,  and  worst. 
As  Tully  is  of  all  our  pleaders  first." 

— <C.  xlix.)  D. 

But  among  the  intimates  of  our  poet  was  another 
pleader,  who,  if  second  to  Cicero  in  the  forum,  was 
more  than  his  match  in  the  field  which  Catullus 
adorned — Licinius  Calvus  Macer.  That  he  held  high 
rank  as  an  orator  is  beyond  a  doubt :  he  has  some 
claims  to  be  the  annalist  of  that  name  much  quoted 
and  referred  to  by  Livy:  he  has  the  credit  with  Ovid 
and  contemporary  poets  of  a  neck-and-neck  place  in 
poetry  with  Catullus,  though  nothing  remains  to  test 
the  soundness  of  the  critical  comparison.  Both  wrote 
epigrams  ;  of  both  Ovid  sings  in  his  dirge  over  Tibul- 
lus  that  if  theie  is  any  after-world,  learned  Catullus, 


CATULLUS  AMOXG  MEN  OF  LITERATURE.        55 

with  his  youthful  temples  wreathed  iu  ivy,  will  meet 
him  there,  in  the  company  of  Calvus.  All  that  we 
read  of  the  latter  is  in  his  favour,  with  the  exception, 
perhaps,  of  the  scurrilous  lampoons  on  Caesar  and  his 
satellites,  in  which,  as  elsewhere,  he  emulated  his 
brother  poet.  Like  him,  his  career  was  brief,  for  he 
died  of  over-training  and  discipline  in  his  thirty-fifth 
year,  his  famous  speech  against  Vatinius  having  been 
delivered  in  his  twenty-seventh,  and  having  been  his 
first  forensic  eflbrt.  It  was  apropos  of  that  speech 
that  Catullus  made  the  following  jeu  d'esprit,  with  an 
allusion  to  his  friend's  union  of  vehement  action  with 
a  person  and  stature  small  almost  to  dwarfishness  : — 

**  When  in  that  wondrous  speech  of  his, 
My  Calvus  had  denounced 
Vatinius,  and  his  infamies 
Most  mercilessly  troimced — 

A  voice  the  buzz  of  plaudits  clove — 

My  sides  I  nearly  split 
"With  lauf^hter,  as  it  cried,  *  By  Jove  1 

An  eloquent  tom-tit ! '  " — (C.  liii.) 

As  is  not  uncommon  with  men  of  like  stature,  vehe- 
mence of  gesticulation  made  up  for  insignificance  of 
height  and  physique;  and  that  Vatinius  had  reason  to 
feel  this,  is  gleaned  from  Seneca's  tradition,  that  wlien 
he  found  how  telling  was  its  impression  on  his  tribunal, 
he  exclaimed,  "Am  I,  then,  judges,  to  be  condemned 
simply  because  yon  pleader  is  eloquent?"  Wo  have, 
however,  more  concern  with  him  as  a  poet  The  first 
piece  of  Catullus  in  which  we  are  introduced  to  him 


56  CATULLUS. 

might  meetly  be  headed  "  Eetaliation ; "  for  in  it  our 
poet  bitterly  upbraids  Calvus  for  inflicting  upon  him 
a  morning's  work  that,  but  for  their  ancient  love, 
might  provoke  more  lasting  hatred  than  his  speech 
drew  from  Vatinius.  He  had  sent  him,  it  seems,  a 
"horrible  and  deadly  volume"  of  sorry  poetry,  a 
"rascally  rabble  of  malignants" — the  latest  novelty 
from  the  school  of  Sulla  the  grammarian ;  for  no  other 
object  than  to  kill  him  at  the  convenient  season  of 
the  Saturnalia  with  a  grim  playfulness,  which  the  poet 
vows  shall  not  go  unrequited  : — 

"  Come  but  to-morrow's  dawn,  I'll  surely  hie 
To  stall  and  book-shop,  and  the  trash  I  buy, 
With  sums  on  Csesius  and  Suffenus  spent, 
Mischievous  wag,  shall  work  thy  punishment," 

— D. 

At  other  times  the  intercourse  between  the  friends  was 
not  so  disappointing.  Seemingly  at  Calvus's  house 
the  two  friends  met  one  evening  to  enjoy  the  feast  of 
reason  and  the  flow  of  soul,  and  the  effects  of  such 
unmixt  enjoyment  overset  the  poet's  fine-wrought 
brain-tissues  : — 

"  How  pleasantly,  Licinius,  went 
The  hours  which  yesterday  we  spent. 
Engaged  as  men  like  us  befits 
In  keen  encounter  of  our  wits  ! 
My  tablets  still  the  records  bear 
Of  all  the  good  things  jotted  there: 
The  wit,  the  repartee  that  flew 
From  you  to  me,  from  me  to  you  : 
The  gay  bright  verse  that  seemed  to  shine 
More  sparkling  than  the  sparkling  wine." 


CATULLUS  AMONG  MEN  01  LITERATURE.       57 

The  end  of  it  was,  however,  that  Catullus  could  not 
"  sleep  for  thinking  on't "  when  he  reached  home,  and 
was  all  agog  to  be  up  at  dawn,  and  to  challenge  a  re- 
newal of  the  pleasant  word-fence ;  but  misused  nature 
resented  the  liberties  our  poet  thought  to  take  with  it. 
His  limbs  were  so  tired  with  a  sleepless  night,  that  he 
was  fain,  at  dawn  of  day,  to  stick  to  his  couch ;  and 
from  thence  to  fire  off  a  lively  poem  of  remembrance 
to  his  comrade  of  the  night  before,  the  burden  of 
which  is  to  warn  him  against  offering  any  impediment 
to  a  speedy  and  equally  pleasant  reunion,  lest  haply 
Nemesis  should  exact  the  like  penalties  from  him  who 
has  hitherto  come  off  scot-free.  One  other  notice  of 
Calvus  is  demanded  by  a  sense  of  our  poet's  higher 
and  tenderer  vein  of  poesy.  It  seems  that  at  the 
age  of  twenty-eight  Calvus  lost  his  beloved  mistress 
Quinctilia — a  theme  for  tearful  elegies,  of  the  beauty 
of  which  neither  Propertius  nor  Ovid  were  insensible, 
whilst  it  secured  a  tender  echo  in  Catullus,  Avhoso 
heart  was  prepared  for  reciprocity  by  a  community 
of  suffering: — 

"  If,  Calvus,  feeling  lingers  in  the  tomb, 

And  shades  are  touched  by  sense  of  mortal  tears, 
Mourning  in  fresh  regrets  love's  vanislied  bloom, 
Weeping  the  dear  delights  of  vanished  years  • 

Then  might  her  early  fate  with  lighter  grief 
Thy  lost  Quinctilia's  gentle  spirit  fill, 

To  cherish,  where  she  bides,  the  assured  belief 
That  she  is  nearest,  dearest  to  thee  still." 

— (C.  xcvi.)  D. 


58  CATULLUS. 

Besides  these  distinguished  names,  others  almost  as 
well  known  might  be  enumerated  among  the  more 
worthy  associates  of  Catullus;  for  instance,  Asinius 
Pollio,  the  friend  of  Virgil  and  Horace,  the  scholar, 
poet,  and  public  man,  to  whose  refinement  and  taste 
he  testifies  in  Poem  xii.  ("  To  Marrucinus  Asinius") ; 
Varus,  whose  other  name  was  more  probably  Quin- 
tilius  than  Alphenus,  and  who  will  then  be  the  ac- 
complished scholar  and  soldier  from  Catullus's  own 
neighbourhood,  Cremona,  to  whose  memory  Horace 
pays  such  a  touching  tribute  ;*  and  Helvidius  Cinna, 
the  poet  who  at  Csesar's  funeral  was  killed  by  the 
rabble  in  mistake  for  his  namesake  Cornelius  Cinna, 
and  of  whom  we  get  a  notice  in  Shakespeare's 
"  Julius  Caesar,"  and  in  Plutarch.  His  famous 
work  was  a  probably  epic  poem  named  "Smyrna," 
of  which  only  a  couple  of  verses  are  extant ;  but 
if  we  may  accept  Catullus's  friendly  judgment,  the 
example  of  Cinna  in  taking  nine  years  to  elaborate 
his  epic,  was  one  that  other  poets  might  with  advan- 
tage follow ;  and  a  favourable  tradition  of  him  has 
clung  to  the  grammarian.  He  is  mentioned  above 
in  the  poem  about  a  visit  to  Varus's  mistress,  apropos 
of  the  sedan  from  Bithynia ;  and  in*  Poem  xcv.  there 
is  some  light  afforded  to  the  elaborate  character 
of  his  great  work.  It  is  given  in  Mr  Robinson 
Ellis's  elegiacs,  more  for  their  exactness  than  their 
elegance : — 

*  Ode  I.  xxiv.,  Ad  Virgilium. 


CATULLUS  AMONG  MEN  OF  LITERATURE.        59 

"  Nine  times  winter  had  end,  nine  times  flushed  summer 

in  harvest, 
Ere  to  the  world  gave  forth  Cinna  the  labour  of  years — 
'  Smyrna ; '   but  in  one  month  Hortensius  himdred  on 

hundred 
Verses,  an  uniipe  birth  feeble,  of  hurry  begot." 

Our  poet  goes  on,  in  verses  somewhat  defective  and 
corrupt,  to  say  that  Cinna's  masterpiece  will  be 
studied  by  ages  yet  unborn,  whereas  the  annals  of 
Volusius  —  the  scribbler  of  whom  the  36th  poem 
written  for  Lesbia  records  Catullus's  opinion — may 
expect  one  inevitable  destiny — to  be  used  as  wrappers 
for  mackerel  and  other  cheap  fish.  It  is  but  fair  to 
add  that  Virgil  passingly  alludes  to  the  poetry  of 
Cinna  as  meritorious.* 

There  remain  one  or  two  other  contemporaries  of 
kindred  vein  of  whom  we  know  only  the  names,  and 
what  Catullus  has  written  on  them.  Such  are  Caecilius 
and  Cornificius,  to  whom  are  addressed  his  35th  and 
38th  poems.  The  former,  as  is  gathered  from  the 
first  of  these,  dwelt,  or  had  a  villa,  near  the  town  and 
lake  of  Como — 

"  Whose  fair  pellucid  waters  break 
In  many  a  dimpling  smile  " — 

and  this  Catullus  exhorted  him  to  quit  upon  a  visit 
to  himself  at  Verona,  not,  however,  without  shrewd 
misgivings  that  there  was  a  charming  cause  for  his 

•  Virgil,  Eel.  ix.  86. 


60  CATULLUS. 

rustication  and  retirement.  Csecilius  is  engaged  on 
a  poem  "To  the  Mighty  Mother,  Cybele,"  and  has 
excited  his  mistress's  curiosity  and  interest  by  re- 
cital of  the  completed  half  of  it.  She  will  not  let 
him  go  till  she  has  heard  the  rest.  CatuUus's 
opinion  of  her  good  taste  is  expressed  in  the  conclud- 
ing stanza : — 

"  Thy  passion  I  can  well  excuse, 
Fair  maid,  in  whom  the  Sapphic  Muse 

Speaks  with  a  richer  tongue  ; 
For  no  unworthy  strains  are  his, 
And  nobly  by  Csecilius  is 

The  Mighty  Mother  sung." 

Of  Comificius  as  little  is  known  as  of  Csecilius.  He 
would  seem  to  have  been  one  of  the  fair-weather 
friends  who  hang  aloof  when  sickness  and  failing 
health  yearn  for  the  kindly  attention  and  affectionate 
souvenir.  The  little  poem  addressed  to  him  bears 
evidence  of  the  poet's  decline.  He  is  succumbing  to 
the  loss  of  his  brother  supervening  on  the  laceration 
of  his  heart  by  the  unfeeling  Lesbia.  This  may  well 
have  been  the  last  of  his  many  strains — certainly  one 
of  the  most  touching  and  plaintive ;  and  of  the  trans- 
lations, we  know  none  that  does  it  justice  but  Theo- 
dore Martin's : — 

*  Ah,  Comificius  !  ill  at  ease 
Is  thy  Catullus'  breast ; 
Each  day,  each  hour  that  passes,  sees 
Him  more  and  more  depressed. 


CATULLUS  AMONG  MEN  OF  LITERATURE.        61 

And  yet  no  word  of  comfort,  no 

Kind  thought,  however  slight, 
Conies  from  thy  hand.     Ah  !  is  it  so 

That  you  my  love  requite  ? 

One  little  lay  to  lull  my  fears, 

To  give  my  spirit  ease — 
Ay,  though  'twere  sadder  than  the  tears 

Of  sad  Simonides." 


CHAPTER   V. 

HYMEN,     O     HYMEN-EB  I 

Catullus  has  been  presented  up  to  this  point  rather 
as  the  writer  of  passionate  love-verses  to  Lesbia,  or 
vers  de  societe  to  his  friends,  literary  or  light,  as  the 
case  might  be.  There  are  yet  two  other  and  distinct 
aspects  of  his  Muse.  That  which  he  borrowed  from 
the  Alexandrian  school  of  poetry  will  demand  the 
full  consideration  of  another  chapter;  but  in  the 
present  it  will  suffice  to  give  some  account  of  his 
famous  epithalamia,  the  models  of  like  composition 
for  all  time,  and  the  loci  classici  of  the  ceremonial  of 
Eoman  marriages,  as  well  as  exquisite  pictures  of  the 
realisation  of  mutual  affection.  It  has  been  seen  how 
fully,  notwithstanding  his  own  blighted  hopes,  Catul- 
lus was  able  to  conceive  the  life-bond  between  his 
friend  Calvus  and  his  helpmeet  Quinctilia.  A  longer 
and  more  lively  picture  presents  the  ecstasy  of  Acme 
and  Septimius  in  lines  and  words  that  seem  to  burn. 
The  two  doting  lovers  plight  vows,  and  compare 
omens,  and  interchange  embraces  and  kisses  that  in- 
spire with  passion  the  poet's  hendecasyllables.  The 
conclusion  of  the  piece  is  all  we  can  quote,  and  is 


HYMEN,  0  HTMENjEEI      .  63 

given  from  a  translation  by  the  author  of  'Lorna 
Doone,'  but  it  may  serve  to  show  that  Catullus  was 
capable  of  picturing  and  conceiving  the  amount  of 
devotion  which  his  nuptial  songs  connect  with  happy 
and  like-minded  unions : — 

Starting  from  such  omen's  cheer. 
Hand  in  hand  on  love's  career, 
Heart  to  heart  is  true  and  dear. 
Dotingly  Septiniius  fond 
Prizes  Acme  far  beyond 

All  the  realms  of  east  and  west — 
Acme  to  Septimius  true, 
Keeps  for  him  his  only  due, 

Pet  delights  and  loving  jest. 
Wlio  hath  known  a  happier  pair, 
Or  a  honeymoon  so  fair  \ " 

One  image  from  the  rest  of  the  poem  cannot  pass  un- 
noticed— that  of  Acme  bending  back  her  head  in 
Septimius's  embrace,  to  kiss  with  rosy  mouth  what 
Mr  Blackmoro  translates  "eyes  with  passion's  wine 
opprest ; "  but  the  whole  jiiece  deserves  to  the  full 
the  unstinted  praise  it  has  met  with  from  critics  and 
copyists. 

The  Epithalamium  of  Julia  and  Manlius,  however, 
is  a  poem  of  more  considerable  i)roportion8 ;  and  at 
the  same  time  that  it  teems  with  poetic  beauties, 
handles  its  subject  with  such  skill  and  ritual  know- 
ledge as  to  supply  a  correct  programme  of  the  marriage 
ceremonial  among  the  Eomans.  Strictly  speaking,  it 
is  not  so  much  a  nuptial  ode  or  hymn  in  tho  sense 
in  which  the  playmates  of  Helen   serenade    her    in 


64  CATULLUS. 

Theocritus,  as  a  series  of  pictures  of  the  bridal  pro- 
cession and  rites,  from  end  to  end.  The  subjects  of 
this  poem  were  a  scion  of  the  ancient  patrician  house 
of  the  Torquati,  Lucius  Manlius  Torquatus,  a  great 
friend  and  patron  of  our  poet,  and  Yinia,  or  Julia 
Aurunculeia,  one  of  whose  two  names  seems  to  have 
been  adoptive,  and  as  to  whom  the  poet's  silence  seems 
to  imply  that  her  bridegroom's  rank  was  enough  to 
dignify  both.  It  was  not  so  long  afterwards  that 
Manlius  sought  our  poet's  assistance  or  solace  in  the 
shape  of  an  elegy  (see  Poem  Ixviii.)  on  her  untimely 
death;  but  in  the  present  instance  his  services  are  taxed 
to  do  honour  to  her  wedding :  and  it  may  be  interesting 
to  accompany  him  through  the  dioramic  description 
which  his  stanzas  illustrate.  The  poem  opens  with  an 
invocation  to  Hymen,  child  of  Urania,  dwelling  in  his 
mother's  Helicon,  bidding  him  wreathe  his  brows  with 
sweet  marjoram  or  amaracus,  fling  round  him  a  flame- 
coloured  scarf,  and  bind  saffron  sandals  to  his  feet,  in 
token  of  going  forth  upon  his  proper  function  and 
errand.  Other  accompaniments  of  his  progress  are 
to  be  song,  and  dance,  and  pine-torch, — each  of  them 
appropriate  in  the  evening  fetching-home  of  the  bride 
from  her  father's  house ;  and  his  interest  is  bespoken 
in  one  who  is  fair,  favoured,  and  fascinating  as  Ida's 
queen,  when  she  condescended  to  the  judgment  of 
Paris : — 

"  As  the  fragrant  myrtle,  found 
Flourishing  on  Asian  ground, 
Thick  with  blossoms  overspread. 
By  the  Hamadryads  fe^. 


HYMEN,  0  HYMEN ^E I  65 

For  their  sport,  with  honey-dew — 
All  so  sweet  is  she  to  view." 

It  is  this  paragon,  proceeds  the  ode,  for  whose  sweet 
sake  the  god  is  besought  to  leave  awhile  his  native 
grottos  and  pools,  and  lend  his  aid  in  binding  soul 
to  soul  to  her  husband — yea,  closer  than  clasping  ivy 
twines  meshy  tendrils  round  its  naked  elm.  To  wel- 
come her  too,  as  well  as  to  invite  Hymenseus  to  his 
wonted  office  with  the  readier  alacrity,  are  bidden  the 
blameless  maidens  of  the  bride's  train,  with  a  series  of 
inducements  adapted  to  bespeak  their  sympathy — his 
interest  in  happy  nuptials,  his  blessing  so  essential  to 
the  transfer  of  the  maiden  from  one  home  and  name 
to  another,  his  influence  on  the  prospects  of  an 
honoured  progeny ;  and  strong  langiiage  is  used,  in  vv. 
71-75,  of  such  nations  as  ignore  the  rites  and  ordinances 
of  marriage. 

And  now  the  bride  is  bidden  to  come  forth.  The 
day  is  waning ;  the  torch-flakes  flicker  bright  in  the 
gloaming;  there  is  no  time  for  tears  of  maidenly 
reluctance ;  the  hour  is  at  hand  : — 

"  Dry  up  thy  tears  !     For  well  I  trow, 
No  woman  lovelier  than  thou, 
Aurunculeia,  shall  behold 
The  day  all  panoplied  in  gold, 
And  rosy  light  uplift  his  head 
Above  the  shimmering  ocean's  bed  I 

As  in  some  rich  man's  garden-plot, 
With  flowers  of  every  hue  inwrought, 
Stands  peerless  forth,  with  drooping  brow. 
The  hyacinth,  so  staudest  thou  ! 
A.C.S.8.,  vol.  iii.  K 


66  CATULLUS. 

Come,  bride,  come  forth  !     No  more  delay  ! 
The  day  is  hurrying  fast  away  ! " 

Then  follow  encouragements  to  the  bride  to  taKe 
the  decisive  step  over  the  threshold,  in  the  shape 
of  substantial  guarantees  of  her  bridegroom's  loyalty; 
and  of  course  the  elm  and  the  ivy  are  pressed,  for 
not  the  first  time,  into  such  service.  More  novel, 
save  that  the  text  of  Catullus  is  here  so  corrupt 
that  commentators  have  been  left  to  patch  it  as  they 
best  may  for  coherence,  is  the  stanza  to  the  bridal 
couch.  All  that  Catullus  has  been  allowed  by  the 
manuscripts  to  tell  us  is  that  its  feet  were  of  ivory, 
'  Avhich  is  very  appropriate ;  but  if  the  reader's  mind 
is  enlisted  in  the  question  of  upholstery,  it  may  be 
interested  to  know  that  collateral  information  enables 
one  critic  to  surmise  that  the  hangings  were  of  sil- 
ver-purple, and  the  timbers  of  the  bedstead  from 
Indian  forests.  But  anon  come  the  boys  with  the 
torches.  Here  is  tlie  veil  or  scarf  of  flame- colour, 
or  doqf)  brilliant  yellow,  capacious  enough,  as  we 
learn,  to  shroud  the  bride  from  head  to  foot,  worn 
over  the  head  during  the  ceremony,  and  retained  so 
till  she  was  unveiled  by  her  husband.  Coincidently 
the  link-bearers  are  chanting  the  hymenaeal  song,  and 
at  intervals,  especially  near  the  bridegroom's  door,  the 
rude  Fescennine  banter  is  repeated  ;  whilst  the  bride- 
groom, according  to  custom,  flings  nuts  to  the  lads  in 
attendance,  much  as  at  a  Greek  marriage  it  was  custo- 
mary to  fling  showers  of  sweetmeats.  The  so-called 
Fescennine  jests  were  doubtless  as  broad  as  the  occa- 
sion would  suggest  to  a  lively  and  joke-loving  nation  ; 


HYMEN,  0  HTMENJEEI  67 

and  another  part  of  the  ceremonial  at  this  point,  as  it 
would  seem  from  Catullus,  though  some  have  argued 
that  it  belonged  rather  to  the  marriage-feast,  Avas  the 
popular  song  "  Talassius  "  or  "  Talassio,"  said  to  have 
had  its  origin  in  an  incident  of  the  "  Eape  of  the 
Sabine  Women."  Catullus  represents  the  choruses  at 
this  point  as  instilling  into  the  bride  by  the  way  all 
manner  of  good  advice  as  to  wifely  duty  and  obedience, 
and  auguring  for  her,  if  she  takes  their  advice,  a  sure 
rile  in  the  home  which  she  goes  to  sliare.  If  she  has 
t  ict,  it  will  own  her  sway — 

**  Till  hoary  age  shall  steal  on  thee, 
With  loitering  step  and  trembling  knee, 
And  palsied  head,  that,  ever  bent, 
To  all,  in  all  things,  nods  assent." 

In  other  words,  a  hint  is  given  her  that,  though  the 
bridegroom  be  the  head  of  the  house,  she  will  be  her- 
%  self  to  blame  if  she  be  not  the  neck. 

As  the  poem  proceeds,  another  interesting  cere- 
monial, which  is  attested  by  collateral  information,  is 
set  graphically  before  the  reader.  Traditionally  con- 
nected with  the  same  legend  of  the  carrying  off  of 
the  Sabine  women,  but  most  probably  arising  out  of 
a  cautious  avoidance  of  evil  omens  through  a  chance 
stumble  on  the  threshold,  was  a  custom  that  on  reach- 
ing the  bridegroom's  door,  the  posts  of  which  were 
wreathed  in  flowers  and  anointed  Avith  oil  for  her 
reception,  the  bride  should  be  carried  over  the  step  by 
the  pronul/i — attendants  or  friends  of  the  groom,  who 
must  be  "  husbands  of  one  wife."    This  is  expressed  as 


68  CATULLUS. 

follows  in  Theodore  Martin's  happy  transcript  of  the 
passage  of  Catullus: — 

"  Thy  golden-sandalled  feet  do  thou 
Lift  lightly  o'er  the  threshold  now  ! 
Fair  omen  this  !     And  pass  between 
The  lintel-jx)8t  of  polished  sheen  ! 
Hail,  Hymen  !  Hymenseus,  hail ! 
Hail,  Hymen,  Hymenseus  ! 

See  where,  within,  thy  lord  is  set 
On  Tyrian-tinctured  coverlet — 
His  eyes  upon  the  threshold  bent, 
And  all  his  soul  on  thee  intent ! 
Hail,  Hymen  !  Hymenseus,  hail ! 
Hail,  Hymen,  Hymenseus  ! " 

By-and-by,  one  of  the  three  prsetexta-clad  hoys, 
who  had  escorted  the  bride  from  her  father's  home  to 
her  husband's,  is  bidden  to  let  go  the  round  arm  he 
has  been  supporting;  the  blameless  matrons  {pro- 
nubce),  of  like  qualification  as  their  male  counterparts, 
conduct  the  bride  to  the  nuptial-couch  in  the  atrium, 
and  now  there  is  no  let  or  hindrance  to  the  bride- 
groom's coming.  Catullus  has  so  wrought  his  bridal 
ode,  that  it  culminates  in  stanzas  of  singular  beauty 
and  spirit.  The  bride,  in  her  nuptial-chamber,  is  re- 
presented, with  a  countenance  like  white  parthenice 
(which  one  critic*  suggests  may  be  the  camomile 
blossom)  or  yeUow  poppy  for  beauty.  And  the  bride- 
groom, of  course,  is  worthy  of  her ;  and  both  worthy 

*  It  may  interest  some  to  know  that  this  was  an  MS.  sug- 
gestion  of  poor  Mortimer  Collins,  a  dear  lover  of  Catullus. 


BYMEN,  0  HYMENJEE!  69 

of  his  noble  race,  as  well  as  meet  to  hand  it  on.  The 
natural  wishes  follow : — 

"  'Tis  not  meet  so  old  a  stem 
Should  be  left  ungraced  by  them, 
To  transmit  its  fame  unshorn 
Down  through  ages  yet  unborn."" 

The  next  lines  of  the  original  are  so  prettily  turned 
by  Mr  Cranstoun,  that  we  forbear  for  the  nonce  to  tax 
the  charming  version  of  Martin : — 

"  May  a  young  Torquatus  soon 

From  his  mother's  bosom  slip 
Forth  his  tender  hands,  and  smile 
Sweetly  on  his  sire  the  while 

With  tiny  half-oped  lip. 

May  each  one  a  Manlins 

In  his  infant  features  see, 
And  may  every  stranger  trace. 
Clearly  graven  on  his  face, 

Hia  mother's  chastity." 

Of  parallels  and  imitations  of  this  happy  thought 
and  aspiration,  there  is  abundant  choice.  Theodore 
Martin's  taste  selects  a  graceful  and  expanded  fancy  of 
Herrick  from  his  "  Hesperides  ;"  while  Dunlop,  in  his 
*  History  of  lioman  Literature,'  quotes  the  following 
almost  literal  reproduction  out  of  an  cpithalamium  on 
the  marriage  of  Lord  Spencer  by  Sir  William  Jones, 
who  pronounced  Catullus's  picture  worthy  the  pencil 
of  Domenichino  : — 

"  And  soon  to  be  completely  blest, 
Soon  may  a  young  Torquatus  rise, 


70  CATULLUS. 

Who,  hanging  on  his  mother's  breast, 
To  his  known  sire  shall  turn  his  eyes, 

Outstretch  his  infant  arms  awhile, 
Half-ope  his  little  lips  and  smile."  * 

The  poem  concludes  with  a  prayer  that  mother  and 
child  may  realise  the  fame  and  virtues  of  Penelope 
and  Telemachus,  and  well  deserves  the  credit  it  has 
ever  enjoyed  as  a  model  in  its  kind. 

Of  the  second  of  Catullus's  Nuptial  Songs  —  an 
hexameter  poem  in  amoebaean  or  responsive  strophes 
and  antistrophes,  supposed  to  be  sung  by  the  choirs 
of  youths  and  maidens  who  attended  the  nuptials, 
and  whom,  in  the  former  hymn,  the  poet  had  been  ex- 
horting to  their  duties,  whereas  here  they  come  in  turn 
to  their  proper  function — no  really  trustworthy  his- 
tory is  to  be  given,  though  one  or  two  commentators 
propound  that  it  was  a  sort  of  brief  for  the  choruses, 
written  to  order  on  the  same  occasion  for  which  the 
poet  had  written,  on  his  own  account,  the  former  nup- 
tial hymn.  But  the  totally  different  style  and  struc- 
ture forbid  the  probability  of  this,  although  both  are 
remarkable  poems  of  their  kind.  This  one,  certainly, 
has  a  ringing  freshness  about  it,  and  seems  to  cleave 
the  shades  of  nightfall  with  a  reveille  singularly  re- 
memberable.  The  youths  of  the  bridegroom's  company 
have  left  him  at  the  rise  of  the  evening  star,  and  gone 
forth  for  the  hymenaeal  chant  from  the  tables  at 
which  they  have  been  feasting.  They  recognise  the 
bride's  approach  as  a  signal  to  strike  up  the  hymen- 
aial.     Hereupon  the  maidens  who  have  accompanied 

*  Dimlop's  Roman  Literature,  i.  497. 


HYMEN,   0  HYMEN^E!  71 

the  bride,  espying  the  male  chorus,  enter  on  a  rivalry 
in  argument  and  song  as  to  the  merits  of  Hesperus, 
whom  they  note  as  he  shows  his  evening  fires  over 
CEta — a  sight  which  seems  to  have  a  connection  with 
some  myth  as  to  the  love  of  Hesper  for  a  youth 
named  Hymenaeus  localised  at  (Eta,  as  the  story  of 
Diana  and  Endymion  was  at  Latmos,  to  which  Virgil 
alludes  in  his  eighth  eclogue.  Both  bevies  gird  them- 
selves for  a  lively  encounter  of  words,  from  their 
diverse  points  of  view.     First  sing  the  virgins  : — 

"  Hesper,  hath  heaven  more  ruthless  star  than  thine, 
That  canst  from  mother's  arms  her  child  untwine  ? 
From  mother's  arms  a  eliding  daughter  part, 
To  dower  a  headstrong  bridegroom's  eager  heart  ? 
Wrong  like  to  this  do  captured  cities  know  ? 
Ho !  Hymen,  Hymen !    Hymenaeus,  ho ! " — D. 

The  band  of  youths  reply  in  an  antistrophe  which 
negatives  the  averment  of  the  maidens : — 

"  Hesper,  hath  heaven  more  jocund  star  than  thee, 
Whose  flame  still  crowns  true  lovers'  unity  ; 
The  troth  that  parents  first,  then  lovers  plight, 
Nor  deem  complete  till  thou  illum'st  the  night  ? 
What  hour  more  blissful  do  the  gods  bestow  ? 
Hail !  Hymen,  Hymen  !     Hymenajus,  ho  ! " — D. 

To  judge  of  the  next  plea  of  the  chorus  of  maidens  by 
the  fragmentary  lines  Avhich  remain  of  the  original,  it 
took  the  grave  form  of  a  charge  of  alxluction  against 
the  incriminated  evening  star.  If  he  were  not  a  prin- 
cipal in  the  felonious  act,  at  least  he  winked  at  it, 
when  it  was  the  express  vocation  of  his  rising  to  pre- 


72  CATULLUS. 

vent,  by  publicity,  all  such  irregular  proceedings. 
But  now  the  youths  wax  bold  in  their  retort,  and 
wickedly  insinuate  that  the  fair  combatants  are  not 
really  so  very  wroth  with  Hesper  for  his  slackness. 
After  a  couplet  which  seems  to  imply,  though  its 
sense  is  obscure  and  ambiguous,  that  the  sort  of 
thieves  whom  these  maidens  revile,  and  whose  ill 
name  is  not  confined  to  Roman  literature  (for  in  the 
Russian  songs,  as  we  learn  from  Mr  Ralston's  enter- 
taining volumes,  the  bridegroom  is  familiarly  regarded 
as  the  "enemy,"  "that  evil-thief,"  and  "the  Tartar"), 
speedily  find  their  ofiences  condoned,  and  are  received 
into  favour,  they  add  a  pretty  plain  charge  against 
the  complainants  that — 

"  Chide  as  they  list  in  song's  pretended  ire. 
Yet  what  they  chide  they  in  their  souls  desire.'* 

This  is  such  a  home-thrust  Jhat  the  virgins  change 
their  tactics,  and  adduce  an  argument  ad  miseri- 
cordiam,  which  is  one  of  the  most  admired  passages 
of  Catullus,  on  the  score  of  a  simile  often  imitated 
from  it.  The  following  version  will  be  found  tolei 
ably  literal : — 

"  As  grows  hid  floweret  in  some  garden  closed, 
Crushed  by  no  ploixghshare,  to  no  beast  exposed. 
By  zephyrs  fondled,  nursed  up  by  the  rain, 
With  kindly  sun  to  strengthen  and  sustain : 
To  win  its  sweetness  lads  and  lasses  vie  : 
But  let  that  floweret  wither  by-and-by, 
Nipped  by  too  light  a  hand,  it  dies  alone  • 
Its  lover  lads  and  lasses  all  are  flown  ! 


HYMEN,  0  HTMENuEEl  73 

E'en  as  that  flower  is  lovely  maiden's  pride, 
In  her  pure  A-irgin  home  content  to  bide  ; 
A  husband  wins  her, — and  her  bloom  is  sere, 
No  more  to  lads  a  charm,  or  lasses  dear  ! " — D, 

The  last  line  is  undoubtedly  borrowed  from  a  frag- 
ment of  the  Greek  erotic  poet,  Mimmermus ;  and  the 
whole  passage,  as  Theodore  Martin  shows,  has  had  its 
influence  upon  an  admired,  canto  of  Spenser's  *  Faery 
Queen'  (B.  ii.  c.  xii.) 

Will  the  boys  melt  and  give  in,  or  will  they  show 
cause  why  they  should  not  accept  this  sad  showing  of 
the  mischief,  for  which  Hymen  and  Hesper  have  the 
credit  1    Let  us  hear  their  antistrophe : — 

"  As  a  lone  vine  on  barren,  naked  field 
"Lifts  ne'er  a  shoot,  nor  mellow  grape  can  yield, 
But  bends  top-heavy  with  its  slender  frame,    * 
Till  root  and  branch  in  level  are  the  same  : 
Such  vine,  such  field,  in  their  forlorn  estate 
No  peasants  till,  nor  oxen  cultivate. 
Yet  if  the  same  vine  with  tall  elm-tree  wed, 
Feasants  will  tend,  and  oxen  till  its  bed. 
So  with  the  maid  no  lovers'  arts  engage, 
She  sinks  unprized,  unnoticed,  into  age ; 
But  once  let  hour  and  man  be  duly  found, 
Her  father's  pride,  her  husband's  love  redound."  ♦ 

— D. 

•  Compare  tho  sentiment  of  "Waller's  "Go,  Lovely  Kom," 
particularly  in  the  third  stanza  :— 

"  Small  is  the  worth 
Of  beauty  from  the  light  retired ; 
Bid  her  come  forth, 
Suffer  herself  to  be  desired, 
And  not  blush  so  to  be  adiiiired.'* 


74  CATULLUS. 

The  epithalamium  ends  with  an  arithmetical  calcula- 
tion of  the  same  special  pleaders,  which  the  maidens 
apparently  find  unanswerable,  and  which  is  of  this 
nature — namely,  that  they  are  not  their  OAvn  property, 
except  as  regards  a  third  share.  As  the  other  two  shares 
heloug  to  their  parents  respectively,  and  these  have 
coalesced  in  transferring  their  votes  to  a  son-in-law,  it 
is  obviously  as  futile  as  it  is  unmannerly  to  demur  to 
the  nuptial  rites.  And  so  the  poem  ends  With  the 
refrain  of  "  Hymen,  0  Hymenaee ! "  It  has  with 
much  plausibility  been  conjectured  by  Professor  Sellar 
to  be  an  adaptation  of  Sappho  or  some  other  Greek 
poet  to  an  occasion  within  CatuUus's  own  experience. 
Certainly  it  does  not  exhibit  like  originality  with  the 
poem  preceding  it.  It  might  be  satisfactory,  were  it 
possible,  to  give,  by  way  of  sequel  to  the  epithalamium 
of  Julia  and  Manlius,  trustwoithy  data  of  the  young 
wife's  speedy  removal ;  but  this  is  based  upon  sheer 
conjecture,  and  so  much  as  we  know  has  been  already 
stated.  If  we  might  transfer  to  the  elegiacs  addressed 
to  Manlius  before  noticed  a  portion  of  the  story  of 
Laodamia,  which  has  sometimes  been  printed  with 
them,  but  is  now  arranged  with  the  verses  to  Manius 
Acilius  Glabrio,  we  should  be  glad  to  conceive  of 
Julia's  wedded  life  as  matching  that  of  Laodamia,  and 
offering  a  model  for  its  portrayal. 

"  Nor  e'er  was  dove  more  loyal  to  her  mate 

That  bird  which,  more  than  all,  with  clinging  beak, 
Kiss  after  kiss  will  pluck  insatiate — 
Though  prone  thy  sex  its  joys  in  change  to  seek. 


EYMEN,   0  HYMEN ^E I  75 

Than  thou,  Laodamia  !    Tame  and  cold 
Was  all  their  passion,  all  their  love  to  thine  : 

Wlien  thou  to  thy  enamoxired  breast  didst  fold 
Thy  blooming  lord  in  ecstasy  divine. 

As  fond,  as  fair,  as  thou,  so  came  the  maid, 
Who  is  my  life,  and  to  my  bosom  clung  ; 

While  Cupid  nwndher  fluttering,  arrayed 
In  saffron  vest,  a  radiance  o'er  her  flung." 

— (C.  Ixviii.)  M. 


CHAPTER  VL 

THE  ROM  AN- ALEXANDRINE  AND  LONGER  POEMS 
OP  CATULLUS. 

That  portion  of  the  poetry  of  Catullus  which  has  been 
considered  hitherto  is  doubtless  the  most  genuine  and 
original ;  but,  with  the  exception  of  the  two  epitlia- 
laniia,  the  poems  now  to  be  examined,  as  moulded  on 
the  Alexandrine  form  and  subjects,  are  perhaps  the 
more  curious  in  a  literary  point  of  view.  Contrasting 
with  the  rest  of  his  poetry  in  their  lack  of  "  naturalism 
essentially  Eoman  and  republican,"  they  savour  undis- 
guisedly  of  that  Eoman  -  Alexandrinism  in  poetry 
which  first  sprang  up  in  earnest  among  the  contem- 
poraries of  Cicero  and  Caesar,  and  grew  with  all  tlio 
more  rapidity  owing  to  the  frequent  visits  of  the 
Romans  to  the  Greek  provinces,  and  the  increasing 
influx  of  the  Greek  literati  into  Rome.  Of  the  Alex- 
andrine literature  at  its  fountain-head  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  it  was  the  substitute  and  successor — on  the 
ruin  of  the  Hellenic  nation,  and  the  decline  of  its 
nationality,  language,  literature,  and  art — of  the  for- 
mer national  and  popular  literature  of  Greece.  But  it 
was  confined  to  a  limited  range.     "  It  was,"  says  Pro- 


THE  LONGER  POEMS.  77 

fessor  Mommsen,  "  only  in  a  comparatively  narrow 
circle,  not  of  men  of  culture — for  such,  strictly  speak- 
ing, did  not  exist — but  of  men  of  erudition,  that  the 
Greek  literature  was  cherished  even  when  dead ;  that 
the  rich  inheritance  which  it  had  left  was  inventoried 
with  melancholy  pleasure  or  arid  refinement  of  re- 
search ;  and  that  the  living  sense  of  sympathy  or  the 
dead  erudition  was  elevated  into  a  semblance  of  pro- 
ductiveness. This  posthumous  productiveness  consti- 
tutes the  so-called  Alexandrinism."  Originality  found 
a  substitute  in  learned  research.  Multifarious  learning, 
the  result  of  deep  draughts  at  the  wells  of  criticism, 
grammar,  mythology,  and  antiquit'es,  gave  an  often 
cumbrous  and  pedantic  character  to  laboured  and  vol- 
uminous epics,  elegies,  and  hymnology  (a  point  and 
smartness  in  epigram  being  the  one  exception  in  favour 
of  this  school),  whilst  the  full  genial  spirit  of  Greek 
thought,  coeval  with  Greek  freedom,  was  exchailgcd  for 
courtly  compliment,  more  consistent  with  elaboration 
than  freshness.  Among  the  best  of  the  Alexandrian 
poets  proper — indeed,  the  best  of  all,  if  we  except  the 
original  and  genial  Idyllist,  Theocritus — was  the  learned 
Callimachus ;  and  it  is  upon  Callimachus  especially 
that  Catullus  has  drawn  for  his  Eoman-Alexail^rine 
poems,  one  of  them  being  in  fact  a  translation  of  that 
poet's  elegy  "  On  the  Hair  of  Queen  Berenice ;"  whilst 
another,  his  "  Nuptials  of  Peleus  and  Thetis,"  has  been 
supposed  by  more  than  one  critic  to  be  a  translation 
of  Callimachus  also.  This  is,  indeed,  problematical ; 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  for  his  mythologic  details, 
Bcholarship,  and  other  features  savouring  of  ultra  erudi- 


78  CATULLUS. 

tion,  he  owes  to  Callimachus  characteristics  which  his 
intrinsic  poetic  gifts  enabled  him  to  dress  out  accept- 
ably for  the  critics  of  his  day.  The  singular  and 
powerful  poem  of  "  Atys  "  belongs  to  the  same  class, 
by  reason  of  its  mythological  subject.  A  recent 
.French  critic  of  Catullus,  in  a  learned  chapter  on 
Alexandrinism,  defines  it  as  the  absence  of  sincerity 
in  poetry,  and  the  exclusive  preoccupation  of  form. 
"  He,"  writes  M.  Couat,  "  who,  instead  of  looking 
around  him,  or,  better,  within  himself,  parades  over 
all  countries  and  languages  his  adventurous  curiosity, 
and  prefers  Vesprit  to  Tame — the  new,  the  pretty,  the 
fine,  to  the  natural  and  simple — such  an  one,  to 
whatever  literature  he  belongs,  is  an  Alexandrinist 
Alexandrinism  in  excess  is  what  in  this  writer's  view 
is  objectionable  ;  and  whilst  we  are  disposed  to  think 
that  few  will  demur  to  this  moderate  dogma,  it  is 
equally  certain  that  none  of  the  Roman  cultivators  of 
the  Alexandrine  school  have  handled  it  with  more 
taste  and  less  detriment  to  their  natural  gifts  than 
Catullus.  "With  him  the  elaborateness  which,  in 
its  homo,  Alexandrinism  exhibits  as  to  metre  and 
prosody,  is  exchanged  for  a  natural  and  unforced 
power,  quite  consistent  with  simplicity.  As  is 
well  observed  by  Professor  Sellar,  "His  adaptation 
of  the  music  of  language  to  embody  the  feeling  or 
passion  by  which  he  is  possessed,  is  most  vividly  felt  in 
the  skylark  ring  of  his  great  nuptial  ode,  in  the  wild 
hurrying  agitation  of  the  Atys,  in  the  stately  calm  of 
the  Epithalamium  of  Peleus  and  Thetis."  Herein,  as 
indeed  in  the  tact  and  art  evinced  generally  in  these 


THE  LONGER  POEMS.  79 

larger  poems,  we  seem  to  find  ground  for  dissent  from 
the  opinion  of  several  otherwise  weighty  critics  of 
Catullus,  that  they  were  the  earlier  exercises  of  his 
poetic  career — a  suhject  upon  which,  as  there  is  the 
scantiest  inkling  in  either  direction,  it  is  admissible  to 
take  the  negative  view.  As  a  work  of  art,  no  doubt 
the  "  Kuptials  of  Peleus  and  Thetis  "  are  damaged  by 
the  introduction  of  the  episode  of  Ariadne's  desertion 
within  the  main  poem — an  offence  obviously  against 
strict  epic  unity.  But  it  is  not  by  any  means  sure 
that  this  is  so  much  a  sign  of  youtliful  work  as  of  an 
independence  consistent  with  poetic  fancy,  and  cer- 
tainly not  amenable  to  the  stigma  of  Alexandrinism, 
which  must  be  en  regie,  if  anything.  It  is  with  this 
largest,  and  in  many  re8])ects  finest,  sample  of  CatuUus's 
epic  capacity,  that  we  propose  to  deal  at  greatest  length, 
reserving  space  for  a  glatice  or  two  at  the  "  Atys  "  and 
the  "  Hair  of  Berenice."  "  The  whole  poem  "  (Peleus 
and  Thetis),  to  quote  Mr  Sellar  once  more,  "  is  per- 
vaded with  that  calm  light  of  strange  loveliness  which 
spreads  over  the  unawakened  world  in  the  early  sunrise 
of  a  summer  day."  If  hero  and  there  a  suspicion  of 
over -wrought  imagery  and  description  carries  back 
the  mind  to  a  remembrance  of  the  poet's  model,  it 
must  be  allowed  that,  for  the  most  part,  this  poem 
excels  in  variety,  in  pictorial  effects,  in  force  of  fancy, 
and  clever  sustentation  of  the  interest.  It  begins 
with  the  day  on  which,  in  the  hoar  distance  of  mytliic 
ages,  the  Pelion-born  Argo  was  first  launched  and 
manned,  and  the  first  sailor  of  all  ever  burst  on  the 
realm  of  Amphitrito — a  statement  which  we  must  not 


80  CATULLUS. 

criticise  too  closely,  as  the  poet  elsewhere  in  the  poem 
tells  of  a  fleet  of  Theseus  prior  to  the  Argonautic 
expedition : — 

"  Soon  as  its  prow  the  wind-vexed  surface  clave,        ^ 
Soon  as  to  oarsmen's  harrow  frothed  the  wave, 
Forth  from  the  eddying  whiteness  Nereids  shone, 
With  faces  set — strange  sight  to  look  upon. 
Then,  only  then,  might  mortal  vision  rest 
On  naked  sea-nymph,  lifting  rosy  hreast 
High  o'er  the  billows'  foam,    'Twas  then  the  flame 
Of  love  for  Thetis  Peleus  first  o'ercame  : 
Then  Thetis  deigned  a  mortal  spouse  to  wed  ! 
Then  Jove  approved,  and  their  high  union  sped." 

— D. 

The  poet  having  thus  introduced  the  betrothal,  as 
it  were,  of  the  goddess  and  the  hero,  pauses,  ere  he 
plunges  into  his  subject,  to  apostrophise  heroes  and 
heroines  in  general,  and  more  especially  the  twain 
immediately  concerned :  Peleus,  for  whom  the  very 
susceptible  father  of  the  gods  had  Avaived  his  own 
penchant  for  Thetis ;  Peleus,  the  stay  and  champion 
of  Thessaly ;  and  Thetis,  most  beautiful  of  ocean's 
daughters,  and  grandchUd  of  earth-girding  Tethys  and 
her  lord  Oceanus — a  fitting  proem  to  the  action  of 
the  poem,  which  commences  with  no  further  delay. 
We  see  all  Tliessaly  come  forth  to  do  honour  and 
guest-service  to  the  nuptials,  gifts  in  their  hands,  and 
joy  and  gladness  in  their  countenances.  Scyros  and 
Phthia's  Tempe,  Cranon,  and  Larissa's  towers  are  all 
deserted  on  that  day,  for  the  Pharsalian  home  where 
high  festival  and  a  goodly  solemnity  is  kept.    A  lively 


THE  LONGER  POEMS.  81 

description  follows  of  the  country  and  its  occupations 
given  over  to  complete  rest  and  keeping  holiday ;  and 
this  is  seemingly  introduced  by  way  of  contrast  to  the 
stir  and  splendour  and  gorgeous  preparations  within 
the  halls  of  Peleus.  But  the  poet  without  delay 
presses  on  to  one  of  his  grand  effects  of  description — 
the  rich  bridal  couch,  with  frame  of  ivory  and  cover- 
let of  sea- purples,  on  which  was  wrought  the  tale  of 
Ariadne's  desertion  by  Theseus.  She  has  just  awak- 
ened to  her  loss,  and  the  picture  is  one  of  passionate 
fancy  and  force.  To  give  a  transcript  of  this  is 
impossible ;  and  though  Mr  Martin's  handling  of  the 
whole  passage  is  admirably  finished,  yet  where  the 
best  comes  far  short  of  the  original,  it  seems  justifi- 
able to  introduce  a  distillation  of  its  spirit,  without 
attempting  metrical  likeness.  The  following  version 
is  by  the  Rev.  A.  C.  Auchmuty*  (see  Catull.  Ixiv. 
w.  52-75)  :— 

"  There,  upon  Dia's  ever-echoing  shore, 
Sweet  Ariadne  stood,  in  fond  dismay. 
With  wild  eyes  watching  the  swift  fleet,  that  bore 

Her  loved  one  far  away. 
And  still  she  gazed  incredulous  ;  and  still, 
Like  one  awaking  from  beguiling  sleep. 
Found  herself  standing  on  the  bea'chy  lull. 

Left  there  alone  to  weep. 
But  the  quick  oars  upon  the  waters  flashed. 
And  Theseus  fled,  and  not  a  thought  behind 


♦  Verses,  Original  and  Translated,  by  A.  C.  Auchmuty. 
Exeter,  1869. 
A.C.8.8.,  vol.  iii.  » 


82  CATULLUS, 

He  left ;  but  all  his  promises  were  dashed 

Into  the  wandering  wind. 
Far  off  she  strains  her  melancholy  eyes ; 

And  like  a  Mmnad  sculptured  there  in  sU/ne 
Stands  as  in  act  to  shout,  for  she  espies 

Him  she  once  called  her  ow 
Dark  waves  of  care  swayed  o'er  her  tender  soul ; 

The  fine-wove  turban  from  her  golden  hair 
Had  fallen  ;  the  light  robe  no  longer  stole 

Over  her  bosom  bare. 
Loose  dropped  the  well-wrought  girdle  from  her  breast, 

That  wildly  struggled  to  be  free :  they  lay 
About  her  feet,  and  many  a  briny  crest 

Kissed  them  in  careless  play. 
But  nought  she  recked  of  turban  then,  and  nought 

Of  silken  garments  flowing  gracefully. 
0  Theseus  !  far  away  in  heart  and  thought 

And  soul,  she  hung  on  thee  ! 
Ay  me  !  that  hour  did  cruel  love  prepare 

A  never-ending  thread  of  wildering  woe  ; 
And  twining  round  that  heart  rude  briars  of  carey 

Bade  them  take  root  and  grow  ; 
What  time,  from  old  Piraeus'  curved  strand 

A  ship  put  forth  towards  the  south,  to  bring 
Chivalrous-hearted  Tlieseus  to  the  land 
Of  the  unrighteous  king." 

A  comparison  of  the  above  with  the  Latin  text  will 
show  that,  as  in  the  italicised  passages,  the  translator 
has  been  careful  to  preserve,  as  much  as  might  be,  the 
expressions,  metaphors,  and  similes  of  the  author. 
That  author  proceeds  from  this  point  to  explain  the 
causes  of  Theseus's  visit  to  the  home  of  Minos,  and  to 
unfold  the  legend  of  the  monster,  the  labyrinth,  the 
clue  to  it  supplied  by  Ariadne,  and  the  treachery  of 


THE  LONGER  POEMS.  83 

Theseus,  who,  when  he  had  vanquished  the  monster, 
and  led  the  princess  to  give  up  all  for  him,  forsook 
her  as  she  lay  asleep  in  Dia's  sea-girt  isle.  The  lament 
of  Ariadne  on  discovering  her  desolation  is  a  triumph 
of  true  poetic  art  in  its  accommodation  of  the  measure 
to  the  matter  in  hand ;  the  change  from  calm  descrip- 
tion to  rapid  movement  and  utterance,  as,  climbing 
mountain-top,  or  rushing  forth  to  face  the  surges  up- 
plashing  over  the  beach  to  meet  her,  she  utters  out- 
bursts of  agony  and  passion  intended  to  form  a  con- 
summate contrast  to  the  ideal  happiness  of  them  on 
whose  coverlet  this  pathetic  story  was  broidered.  Two 
stanzas  from  Martin's  beautiful  and  ballad-like  version 
must  represent  the  touching  character  of  this  lament, 
in  which,  by  the  way,  are  several  turns  of  thought 
and  expression  which  Virgil  seems  to  have  had  in 
mind  for  the  4th  Book  of  the  *  iEneis  : ' — 

"  Lost,  lost !  where  shall  I  turn  me  ?   Oh,  ye  pleasant  hills 

of  home, 
How  shall  I  fly  to  thee  across  this  gulf  of  angry  foam  ? 
How  meet  my  father's  gaze,  a  thing  so  doubly  steeped  in 

guilt. 
The  leman  of  a  lover,  who  a  brother's  blood  hatl  spilt  ? 

A  lover  !  gods  !  a  lover  !     And  alone  he  cleaves  the  deep, 

And  leaves  me  here  to  perisli  on  this  savage  ocean  steep. 

No  hope,  no  succour,  no  escape  !  None,  none  to  hear  my 
prayer ! 

All  dark,  and  drear,  and  desolate ;  and  death,  death  every- 
where !"  --(C.  Ixiv.  vv.  177-187.) 

The  lines  in  which  she  declares  that,  had  ^geus  ob- 
jected to  her  for  a  danghter-in-law,  she  would  havo 


84  CATULLUS. 

beeu  his  handmaid,  to  spread  his  couch  and  lave  his 
feet,  have  more  than  one  echo  in  English  poetry ;  and 
the  climax  of  the  lament,  in  a  deep  and  sweeping 
curse  on  her  betrayer,  is  a  passage  of  terribly  realistic 
earnestness  : — 

"Yet  ere  these  sad  and  streaming  eyes  on  earth  have 

looked  their  last, 
Or  ere  this  heart  has  ceased  to  heat,  I  to  the  gods  will  cast 
One  burning  prayer  for  vengeance  on  the  man  who  foully 

broke 
The  vows  which,  pledged  in  their  dread  names,  in  my  fond 

ear  he  spoke. 

Come,  ye  that  wreak  on  man  his  guilt  with  retribution  dire, 
Ye  maids;  whose  snake  -  wreathed  brows  bespeak  your 

bosom's  vengeful  ire  ! 
Come  ye,  and  hearken  to  the  curse  which  I,  of  sense  forlorn. 
Hurl  from  the  ruins  of  a  heart  with  mighty  anguish  torn ! 

Though  there  be  fury  in  my  words,  and  madness  in  my 
brain, 

Let  not  my  cry  of  woe  and  wrong  assail  your  ears  in  vain  ! 

Urge  the  false  heart  that  left  me  here  still  on  with  head- 
long chase, 

From  ill  to  worse,  till  Theseus  curse  himself  and  all  his 
race  ! "  — M. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  it  would  have  been 
more  artistic  had  the  poet  here  dismissed  the  legend 
of  Theseus  and  his  misdemeanours,  or,  if  not  this, 
had  he  at  least  omitted  the  lesson  of  divine  retribution 
conveyed  in  his  sire's  death  as  he  crossed  the  home- 
threshold,  and  contented  himself  Avith  the  spirited  pre- 
sentment of  Bacchus  and  his  attendant  Satyrs  and 


THE  LONGER  POEMS.  85 

Sileni  in  quest  of  Ariadne,  on  another  compartment 
of  the  coverlet.  So  far,  the  reader  of  the  poem  has 
represented  one  of  the  crowd  gazing  at  tlie  triumphs 
of  needlework  and  tapestry  in  the  bridal  chambers. 
Now,  place  must  be  made  for  the  divine  and  heroic 
guests,  and  their  wedding-presents  :  Chiron,  with  the 
choicest  meadow,  alpine,  and  aquatic  flowers  of  his  land 
of  meadows,  rocks,  and  rivers ;  Peneius,  with  beech, 
bay,  plane,  and  cypress  to  plant  for  shade  and  verdure 
in  front  of  the  palace ;  Prometheus,  still  scarred  with 
the  jutting  crags  of  his  rocky  prison;  and  all  the  gods 
and  goddesses,  save  only  Phoebus  and  his  twin-sister, 
absent  from  some  cause  of  grudge  which  we  know  not, 
but  which  the  researches  of  Alexandrine  mythologists 
no  doubt  supplied  to  the  poet.  Anon,  when  the 
divine  guests  are  seated  at  the  groaning  tables,  the 
weird  and  age-withered  Parcaj,  as  they  spin  the  threads 
of  destiny,  in  shrill  strong  voices  pour  forth  an  alter- 
nating song  with  apt  and  mystic  refrain,  prophetic  of 
the  bliss  that  shall  follow  this  union,  and  the  glory 
to  be  achieved  in  its  offspring.  Here  are  two  quatrains 
for  a  sample,  relating  to  Achilles  the  offspring  of  the 


"  His  peerless  valour  and  his  glorious  deeds 

Sljall  mothers  o'er  their  stricken  sons  confess, 
As  smit  with  feeble  liantl  each  bosom  bleeds, 
And  dust  distains  each  grey  dishevelle*!  tress. 

Run,  spindles,  run,  and  trail  the  fateful  threads. 

For  as  the  reaper  mows  the  thickset  ears, 
In  golden  corn-lauds  'ncath  a  burning  sun, 


86  CATULLUS. 

E'en  so,  behold,  Pelides'  falchion  shears 
The  life  of  Troy,  and  swift  its  course  is  run. 

Run,  spindles,  run,  and  trail  the  fateful  threads." 

— D. 

At  the  close  of  this  chant  of  the  fatal  sisters,  Catullus 
draws  a  happy  picture,  such  as  Hesiod  had  drawn 
before  him,  of  the  blissful  and  innocent  age  when  the 
gods  walked  on  earth,  and  mixed  with  men  as  fiiend 
with  friend,  before  the  advent  of  the  iron  age,  when 
sin  and  death  broke  up  family  ties,  and  so  disgusted 
the  minds  of  the  just  Immortals  that  thenceforth  there 
was  no  longer  any  "  open  vision  " — 

"  Hence  from  earth's  daylight  gods  their  forms  rqfrain, 
Nor  longer  men's  abodes  to  visit  deign." 

It  is  by  no  means  so  easy  to  give  any  adequate  idea  of 
the  "  Atys,"  which  is  incomparably  the  most  remark- 
able poem  of  Catullus  in  point  of  metrical  eflFects,  of 
flow  and  ebb  of  passion,  and  of  intensely  real  and 
heart-sfcudied  pathos.  The  subject,  however,  is  one 
which,  despite  the  praises  Gibbon  and  others  have 
bestowed  on  CatuUus's  handling  of  it,  is  unmeet  for 
presentment  in  extenso  before  English  readers.  The 
sensible  and  correctly -judging  Dunlop  did  not  err  in 
his  remark  that  a  fable,  unexampled  except  in  the 
various  poems  on  the  fate  of  Abelard,  was  somewhat 
unpromising  and  peculiar  as  a  subject  for  poetry.  In 
a  metre  named,  from  the  priests  of  Cybele,  Galliam- 
bic,  Catullus  represents — it  may  be  from  his  experi- 
ence and  research  in  Asia  Minor — the  contrasts  of 
enthusiasm  and  repentant  dejection  of  one  who,  for 


THE  LONGER  POEMS.  87 

the  great  goddess's  sake,  has  become  a  victim  of  his 
own  frenzy.  A  Greek  youth,  leaving  home  and 
parents  for  Phrygia,  vows  himself  to  the  service  and 
grove  of  Cybele,  and,  after  terrible  initiation,  snatches 
up  the  musical  instruments  of  the  guild,  and  incites 
his  fellow-votaries  to  the  fanatical  orgies.  Wildly 
traversing  woodlands  and  mountains,  he  falls  asleep 
with  exhaustion  at  the  temple  of  his  mistress,  and 
awakes,  after  a  night's  repose,  to  a  sense  of  his  rash 
deed  and  marred  life.  The  complaint  which  ensues 
is  unique  in  originality  and  pathos.  "No  other 
writer" — thus  remarks  Professor  Sellar — "has  pre- 
sented so  real  an  image  of  the  frantic  exultation  and 
fierce  self-sacrificing  spirit  of  an  inhuman  fanaticism ; 
and  again,  of  the  horror  and  sense  of  desolation  which 
a  natural  man,  and  more  especially  a  Greek  or  Roman, 
would  feel  in  the  midst  of  the  wild  and  strange  scenes 
described  in  the  poem,  and  when  restored  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  voluntary  bondage,  and  of  the  for- 
feiture of  his  country  and  parents  and  the  free  social 
life  of  former  days."  The  same  writer  acutely  notes 
the  contrast  betwixt  "  the  false  excitement  and  noisy 
tumult  of  the  evening  and  the  terrible  reality  and 
blank  despair  of  the  morning,"  which,  with  "  tlie  pic- 
torial environments,"  are  the  characteristic  effects  of 
this  poem.  In  the  original,  no  doubt  these  effects  are 
enhanced  by  the  singular  impetuosity  of  the  metre, 
which,  it  is  well  known,  Mr  Tennyson,  amongst  others, 
has  attempted  to  reprodjice  in  his  experiments  upon 
classical  metres.  Such  attempts  can  achieve  only  a 
fitful  and  limited  success.     English  Galliambics  can 


88  CATULLUS. 

never,  in  the  nature  of  things  or  measures,  be  popular. 
And  even  supposing  the  metre  were  more  promising, 
it  is  undeniably  against  the  dictates  of  good  taste  to 
make  the  revolting  legend  of  Atys  a  familiar  story  to 
English  readers  of  the  ancient  classics. 

Curiosity,  however,  would  dictate  more  acquaint- 
ance with  "  Berenice's  Lock  of  Hair,"  a  poem  sent,  as 
has  been  already  stated,  by  Catullus  to  Hortalus,  and 
purporting  to  be  the  poet's  translation  of  a  court  poem 
of  his  favourite  model,  the  Alexandrian  poet  Calli- 
machus.  The  metre  of  both  is  elegiac;  but  of  the 
original  only  two  brief  fragments  remain — so  brief, 
indeed,  that  they  fail  to  test  the  faithfulness  of  the 
translator.  The  subject,  it  should  seem,  was  the  fate 
of  a  tress  which  Berenice,  according  to  Egyptian  tables 
of  affinity  the  lawful  wife  and  queen  of  Ptolemy  Euer- 
getes,  king  of  Egypt,  although  she  was  his  sister, 
dedicated  to  Venus  Zephyritis  as  an  offering  for  the 
safety  of  her  liege  lord  upon  an  expedition  to  which 
he  was  summoned  against  the  Assyrians,  and  which 
sadly  interfered  with  his  honeymoon.  On  his  return 
the  vow  was  paid  in  due  course :  the  lock,  however, 
shortly  disappeared  from  the  temple  :  and  thereupon 
Conon,  the  court  astronomer  (of  whom  Virgil  speaks 
in  his  third  eclogue  as  one  of  the  two  most  famous 
mathematicians  of  his  time),  invented  the  flattering 
account  that  it  had  been  changed  into  a  constellation. 
So  extravagant  a  compliment  would  naturally  kindle 
the  rivalry  of  the  courtly  qnd  erudite  Alexandrian 
poet  J  and  the  result  was  soon  forthcoming  in  an 
elegiac  poem,  supposed  to  be  addressed  to  her  mis- 


THE  LOJSOER  POEMS.  89 

cress  by  the  new  constellation  itself,  in  explanation  of 
ner  abduction.  To  judge  by  the  fragments  which  are 
extant,  Catullus  appears  to  have  paraphrased  ratlier 
than  closely  translated  the  original  of  Calliniachus, 
though  how  far  he  has  improved  upon  or  embellished 
his  model  it  is  of  course  impossible  to  say.  In  some 
degree  this  detracts  from  the  interest  of  the  poem — at 
any  rate,  when  viewed  in  connection  with  the  genius 
of  Catullus.  Still,  it  deserves  a  passing  notice  for  its 
art  and  ingenuity,  as  employed  after  Catullus's  man- 
ner, in  blending  beauty  and  passion  with  truth  and 
constancy.  It  is  curious,  too,  for  its  suggestive  hints 
for  Pope's  "  Kape  of  the  Lock."  The  strain  of  compli- 
ment is  obviously  more  Alexandrian  than  Eoman ; 
and  readers  of  Theocritus  will  be  prepared  for  a  good 
deal  in  the  shape  of  excessive  compliment  to  the 
Ptolemys.  But  even  in  the  compliment  and  its  ex- 
travagance there  is  a  considerable  chariu  ;  and  it  is 
by  no  means  uninteresting  to  possess,  througli  the 
medium  of  an  accomplished  Latin  poet,  our  only 
traces  of  a  court  poem  much  admired  in  its  day.  If, 
after  all,  the  reception  of  Berenice's  hair  among  the 
constellations  forming  the  group  of  seven  stars  in 
Leo's  tail,  by  the  Alexandrian  astronomers,  is  a 
matter  of  some  doubt,  it  is  at  least  clear  that  Calli- 
machus  did  his  best  to  back  up  Conon's  averment  of 
it,  and  that  it  suited  Catullus  to  second  his  assertion 
so  effectually,  that  it  has  befallen  his  muse  to  trans- 
mit the  poetic  tradition.  The  argument  of  the  poem 
may  be  summarised.  The  Lock  tells  how,  after  its 
dedication  by  Berenice,  if  she  received  her  lord  from 


90  CATULLUS. 

the  wars  safe  and  sound,  Conon  discovered  it  a  con- 
stellation in  the  firmament.  He  had  returned  vic- 
torious ;  the  lock  had  been  reft  from  its  mistress's 
head  with  that  resistless  steel  to  which  ere  then  far 
sturdier  powers  had  succumbed — 

"  But  what  can  stand  against  the  might  of  steel? 
'Twas  that  which  made  the  proudest  mountain  reel. 
Of  all  by  Thia's  radiant  son  surveyed, 
What  time  the  Mede  a  new  -^gean  made, 
And  hosts  barbaric  steered  their  galleys  tall 
Through  rifted  Athos'  adamantine  wall. 
When  things  like  these  the  power  of  steel  confess, 
What  help  or  refuge  for  a  woman's  tress?" — (42-47.)  M; 

Need  we  suggest  the  parallel  from  Pope  ? — 

"  What  time  could  spare  from  steel  receives  its  date, 
And  monuments,  like  men,  submit  to  fate. 
Steel  could  the  labours  of  the  gods  destroy, 
And  strike  to  dust  the  imperial  towers  of  Troy ; 
Steel  could  the  works  of  mortal  pride  confound. 
And  hew  triumphal  arches  to  the  ground. 
What  wonder  then,  fair  nymph,  thine  hairs  should  feel 
The  conquering  force  of  unresisted  steel?" 

The  tress  proceeds  to  describe  her  passage  through 
the  air,  and  her  eventual  accession  to  the  breast  of 
Venus,  thence  to  be  transferred  to  an  assigned  posi- 
tion among  the  stars.  A  high  destination,  as  the 
poem  makes  Berenice's  hair  admit,  yet  one  (and  here 
adulation  takes  its  finest  flight)  which  it  would  cheer- 
fully forego  to  be  once  more  lying  on  its  mistress's 
head : — 


THE  LONGER  POEMS.  91 

**  My  state  so  glads  me  not,  but  I  deplore 
I  ne'er  may  grace  my  mistress'  forehead  more, 
With  whom  consorting  in  her  virgin  bloom, 
I  bathed  in  sweets,  and  quaflfed  the  rich  perfume." 

In  conclusion,  the  personified  and  constellated  lock, 
with  a  happy  thought,  claims  a  toll  on  all  maids  and 
matrons  happy  in  their  love  and  nuptials,  of  an  onyx 
box  of  perfume  on  the  attainment  of  each  heart's  de- 
sire ;  and  this  claim  it  extends,  foremost  and  first,  to 
its  mistress.  Yet  even  this  is  a  poor  compensation 
for  the  loss  of  its  once  far  prouder  position,  to  recover 
which,  and  play  again  on  Berenice's  queenly  brow,  it 
would  be  well  content  if  all  the  stars  in  the  firmament 
should  clash  in  a  blind  and  chaotic  collision  : — 

"  Grant  this,  and  then  Aquarixis  may 
Next  to  Orion  blaze,  and  all  the  world 
Of  starry  orbs  be  into  chaos  whirled." — M. 


After  a  survey  of  the  larger  poems  in  the  foregoing 
chapter,  and  that  next  before  it,  it  would  be  especially 
out  of  place  to  attempt  the  barest  notice  of  all  that 
remains  —  a  few  very  scurrilous  and  indelicate  epi- 
grams, having  for  their  object  the  violent  attacking  of 
CiBsar,  Mamarra,  Gellius,  and  other  less  notable  names 
obnoxious  to  our  poet.  By  far  the  most  part  of  these 
are  so  coarse,  that,  from  their  very  nature,  they  are  best 
left  in  their  native  language ;  and  in  this  opinion  we 
suspect  wo  are  supported  by  the  best  translators  of 
Catullus,  who  deal  with  them  sparingly  and  gingerly. 
Here  and  there,  as  in  Epigram  or  Poem  84,  Catullus 


92  CATULLUS. 

quits  this  uninviting  vein  for  one  of  purer  satire  in 
every  sense,  the  sting  of  it  being  of  philological  in- 
terest. Arrius,  its  subject,  like  some  of  our  own 
countrymen,  seems  to  have  sought  to  atone  for  clip- 
ping his  h's  by  an  equally  ill-judged  principle  of  com- 
pensation. He  used  the  aspirate  where  it  was  wrong 
as  well  as  where  it  was  right.  The  authors  of  a  recent 
volume  already  alluded  to — '  Lays  from  Latin  Lyres ' 
— have  so  expressed  the  spirit  and  flavour  of  Catul- 
lus's  six  couplets  on  this  Arrius,  that  their  version 
may  well  stand  for  a  sample  of  one  of  the  most  amus- 
ing and  least  offensive  of  his  skits  of  this  nature.  It 
is,  of  course,  something  in  the  nature  of  a  parody : — 

"  Whenever  'Arry  tried  to  sound 
An  H,  his  care  was  unavailing  ; 
He  always  spoke  of  'orse  and  'ound, 
And  all  his  kinsfolk  had  that  failing. 

Peace  to  our  ears.     He  went  from  home ; 

But  tidings  came  that  grieved  us  bitterly — 
That  'Arry,  while  he  stayed  at  Rome, 
Enjoyed  his  'oliday  in  Hitaly." 
• 

And  so  we  bid  adieu  to  a  poet  wlio,  with  all  his  faults, 
has  the  highest  claims  upon  us  as  a  bard  of  nature 
and  passion,  and  who  was  beyond  question  the  first 
and  greatest  lyric  poet  of  Italy. 


TIBULLUS. 


CHAPTER    L 

THE  LIFE   OF  ALBIUS   TIBULLUS. 

Although  Catullus,  as  we  have  seen,  lays  some  claim 
to  the  credit  of  acclimatising  the  elegy  as  well  as  other 
Greek  types  of  poetry  at  Kome,  the  neatness  and  finish 
of  that  form  of  verse  may  be  attributed  to  Albius 
Tibullus,  a  Roman  of  equestrian  family,  whose  birth- 
place was  Pedum,  perhaps  the  modern  village  of  Gal- 
licano,  and  in  his  day  so  ruined  and  insignificant  that 
it  survived  rather  as  the  name  of  a  district  than  as  an 
ancient  and  once  famous  Latin  city.  Tradition  has 
not  preserved  the  poet's  prajnoraen ;  but  his  birth- 
diite  was  probably  B.o.  54  :  and,  like  the  two  other 
tuneful  brethren  with  whom  we  associate  him,  his  life 
and  career  were  brie£  He  is  supposed  to  have  died 
B.C.  18,  according  to  an  epigram  of  Domitius  Maisus 
only  a  few  months  later  than  Virgil.  As  is  the  case 
with  Catullus  and  Propertius,  the  data  for  a  life  ot 


94  TIBULLUS.         __ 

TibuUus  are  scant  and  sliadowy,  and  consist  cliiefly 
of  an  elegy  of  Ovid,  an  epistle  of  Horace,  and  a  less 
authoritative  life  by  an  old  grammarian,  with  the 
internal  evidence  to  be  extracted  from  the  poet's  ac- 
knowledged remains.  As  he  nowhere  names  his  sire, 
it  is  inferred  that  he  died  whilst  he  was  yet  a  youth ; 
but  there  are  frequent  and  loving  notices  of  his  mother 
and  sister.  Apparently  his  family  estates  had  been 
confiscated  at  the  time  of  Caesar's  death,  and  his  for- 
tunes had  undergone  the  same  partial  collapse  which 
befell  his  poetic  contemporaries,  Horace  and  Virgil; 
but,  like  them,  he  clearly  succeeded  in  recovering  at 
least  a  portion  of  his  patrimony,  and  this  apparently 
by  the  good  offices  of  his  great  patron,  M.  Valerius 
Messala,  a  chief  of  the  ancient  aristocracy,  who,  after 
the  fashion  of  Maecenas  and  Agrippa,  kept  up  a 
retinue  and  mimic  court  of  versifiers,  and,  it  must  be 
allowed,  exacted  no  more  of  them  than  was  his  honest 
due.  It  was  at  Pedum,  on  his  patrimonial  estate 
between  Tibur  and  -Prasneste,  some  nineteen  miles 
from  Eome,  that  he  passed  the  best  portion  of  his 
brief  but  mainly  placid  life,  amidst  such  scenes  and 
employments  as  best  fitted  his  rural  tastes,  indif- 
ferent health,  and  simple,  contemplative,  affectionate 
nature.  In  his  very  first  elegy,  he  describes  himself 
in  strict  keeping  with  his  eminently  religious  spirit — 
which,  it  has  been  well  remarked,  bade  him  fold  his 
hands  in  resignation  rather  than  open  them  in  hope — 
wreathing  the  god  Terminus  at  the  cross-roads,  paying 
first-fruits  to  Ceres,  setting  up  a  Priapus  to  scare  bird- 
Dirates  from  his  orchards,  and  honouring  the  Lares 


THE  LIFE  OF  ALBIUS  TIBULLUS.  95 

vvitli  the  offering  of  a  lambkin,  the  substitution  of 
which  for  the  fatted  calf  of  earlier  days  betrays  the 
diminution  of  his  fortunes.  As  Mr  Cranstoun  tran- 
slates, the  poet's  admission  runs  thus  : — 

"  Quards  of  a  wealthy  once,  now  poor,  domain — 
Ye  Lares  !  still  my  gift  your  wardship  cheers  ; 
A  fatted  calf  did  then  your  altars  stain, 
To  purify  innumerable  steers. 

A  lambkin  now — a  meagre  offering — 

From  the  few  fields  that  still  I  reckon  mine. 

Shall  fall  for  j-ou  while  rustic  voices  sing : 
*  Oh  grant  the  harvests,  grant  the  generous  -wine  ! '  "* 

— (C.  i.  1.45,  &c.) 

The  probable  dates  of  his  allusions  to  changed  for- 
tunes, in  the  first  book  of  elegies,  forbid  the  conjecture 
of  some  of  his  biographers  that  these  arose  from  his 
lavish  expenditure  on  his  mistresses ;  and  it  is  cer- 
tainly not  so  much  of  a  dilapidated  roiie  as  of  one  who 
lived  simply  and  within  his  income  and  means,  that 
the  shrewd-judging  Horace  wrote  in  Epistle  iv.  (Book 

I-)- 

"  No  brainless  trunk  is  yours  :  a  form  to  please, 
Wealth,  wit  to  use  it.  Heaven  vouchsiifes  you  these. 
What  could  fond  nurse  wish  more  for  her  sweet  pet, 
Than  friends,  goo<l  looks,  and  health  without  a  let, 
A  shrewd  clear  head,  a  tongue  to  speak  his  mind, 
A  seemly  household,  and  a  purse  well  lined  ? " 

— Conington. 

Judging  of  him  by  his  writings,  and  those  of  his 
friends,  Tibullus,  then,  would  strike  us  as  a  genial. 


96  TIBULLUS. 

cheery,  refined,  but  not  foppish  Eoman  knight;  not 
overbearing,  from  liaving  been  very  early  his  own 
master,  but,  for  a  Roman  in  his  condition,  of  a  singu- 
larly domestic  character.  It  is  clear  that  the  court 
and  livery  of  Augustus  had  no  charms  for  him  in  com- 
parison with  the  independence  of  his  Pedan  country- 
life,  although  an  introduction  to  the  former  might 
have  been  had  for  the  asking.  His  tone  is  that  of 
an  old-fashioned  Conservative,  disinclined  to  violent 
changes,  holding  the  persuasion  that  "the  old  is 
better,"  and  prepared  to  do  battle  for  the  good  Satur- 
nian  times,  before  there  were  roads  or  ships,  imple- 
ments of  husbandry  or  weapons  of  war.  Nothing 
in  his  poems  justifies  the  impression  that  his  own 
meddling  in  politics  had  to  do  with  whatever  amount 
of  confiscation  befell  him :  indeed  it  may  reasonably 
be  assumed  that,  in  pleading  for  restitution  or  com- 
pensation, his  patron  may  have  found  his  manifest 
aversion  to  politics  as  well  as  war  very  much  in  his 
favour.  With  Messala,  who  had  fought  against  the 
Triumvirs  under  Cassius  at  Philippi,  but  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  eminently  at  Actium  on  the  side 
of  Augustus,  Tibullus  had  been  early  intimate,  though 
he  declined  to  accompany  him  to  this  decisive  war  in 
B.C.  31.  Less  than  a  year  later,  however,  he  did 
accompany  him  as  aide-de-camp,  or  perhaps  more 
probably  as  the  bard  of  his  prospective  exploits,  on 
a  campaign  to  Aquitania,  and  was  present  at  the 
battle  of  Atax  (Ande  in  Languedoc),  in  which  the 
rebel  tribes  were  effectually  quelled.  In  the  seventh 
elegy  of  his  first  book,  on  the  subject  of  Messala's 


TEE  LIFE  OF  ALBIUS  TIBVLLUb.  97 

birthday,  the  poet  gives,  partly  from  eyewitness  and 
partly  from  report  (for  he  did  not  get  further  than 
Corcyra  in  B.C.  30,  on  his  voyage  with  his  patron  on 
his  Asiatic  expedition),  a  sketch  of  the  localities  of 
Messala's  victories,  which  may  thus  be  represented  in 
English : — 

**  Share  in  thy  fame  I  boast ;  be  witness  ye, 
Pyrene's  heights,  and  shore  of  Santon  sea : 
Arar,  swift  Rhone,  Garomna's  mighty  stream, 
Yellow  Camutes,  and  Loire  of  azure  gleam  : 
Or  shall  calm  Cydnus  rather  claim  my  song, 
Transparent  shallows  smoothly  borne  along  ? 
How  peaks  of  Taurus  into  cloiidland  peer. 
Nor  yet  its  snow  the  rough  Cilicians  fear  1 
Why  need  I  tell  how  scatheless  through  the  sky 
O'er  Syrian  towns  the  sacred  white  doves  fly  ? 
How  Tyre,  with  barks  the  first  to  trust  the  breeze, 
Keeps  from  her  towers  an  outlook  o'er  the  seas  ? 
Or  in  what  sort,  when  Sirius  cracks  the  fields. 
The  plenteous  Nile  its  summer  moisture  yields." 

—(Book  I.  C.  vii'.  9-22.)  D. 

It  was  ill-health  of  a  serious  kind,  if  we  may  judge 
from  his  misgivings  in  the  opening  of  the  third  elegy 
of  the  first  book,  which  cut  short  his  second  campaign 
at  Corcyra;  and  there  may  probably  have  been  as 
much  justification  for  his  step  in  a  natural  delicacy  of 
constitution,  as  predisposition  to  it  in  his  singularly 
unwarlike  tendencies.  At  any  rate,  when  he  turned 
his  back  upon  Corcyra,  it  was  to  say  adieu  for  ever  to 
the  profession  of  arms ;  and  thenceforth,  though  men- 
tally following  his  patron's  fortunes  with  affectionato 
interest,  which  often  finds  vent  in  song,  he  seems  to  bavu 
A.C.8.S.,  vol.  iii.  o 


98  TIBULLUS. 

given  up  all  campaigns,  except  in  the  congenial  fields 
of  love  and  literature.  No  doubt,  he  had  no  objection 
on  occasion  to  fight  his  few  battles  over  again ;  and,  as 
the  broken  soldier  in  Goldsmith's  *  Deserted  Village,' 

"  Shouldered  his    crutch  and  showed   how  fields  were 
won," — 

so  our  poet  was  quite  at  home  in  telling  as  well  as  hear- 
ing the  soldier's  tale,  with  the  aid  of  the  wine-flask  to 
map  out  the  battle-fields  with  miost  finger  on  the 
table.  But  Peace  approved  herself  so  much  more  to 
his  mind  that  we  find  him  constantly  attributing  to  it 
the  whole  cycle  of  blessings ;  amongst  others — 

*'  Peace  nursed  the  vine,  and  housed  the  juice  in  store, 
That  the  sire's  jar  his  offspring's  soul  should  cheer ; " 

and  it  is  with  perhaps  more  heartfelt  enthusiasm  than 
that  which  he  bestowed  on  the  Gallic  or  Asiatic  cam- 
paigns that  he  commemorates  on  Messala's  birthday, 
already  referred  to,  the  peaceful  services  of  that  general 
to  his  country  in  reconstructing  a  portion  of  the  Fla- 
minian  way  out  of  the  spoils  which  he  had  captured 
from  the  enemy.  The  lines  in  the  original  indicate 
that  this  great  work  was  in  course  of  construction 
when  the  seventh  elegy  was  written  ;  and  it  is  not  mu 
uninteresting  note  that,  as  in  our  day,  so  of  old,  the 
road-maker  was  esteemed  a  public  benefactor  and  the 
pioneer  of  civilisation.     "  Be  thine,"  ends  the  poet — 

"  Be  thine  a  race  to  crown  each  honoured  deed. 
And,  gathering  round  thine  age,  swell  honour's  meed. 
Frascati's  youth  and  glistening  Alba's  son 
Tell  out  the  civil  work  thine  hand  hath  done. 


THE  LIFE  OF  ALBIUS  TIBULLUS.  99 

Thy  wealth  it  is  the  gritty  rock  conveys, 
The  gravel  strews,  the  jointed  stones  o'erlays  : 
Hence,  since  no  more  he  stumbles  home  from  town, 
Hence,  of  thy  road  oft  brags  belated  clown. 
Come  then  for  many  a  year,  blest  birthday,  come. 
And  brighten  each  year  more  Messala's  home  !" — D. 

In  truth,  the  lot  of  TibuUus  was  fitter  to  be  cast  in 
such  peaceful  surroundings  than  in  the  wars  and  battle- 
fields of  Rome,  for  empire  far  renowned.  And  there- 
fore, with  the  exception  of  the  sole  warlike  episode  we 
have  noticed,  his  subjects  are  mostly  peaceful,  and 
the  poems,  which  are  the  chronicle  of  his  life,  pretty 
equally  divided  between  praise  of  the  country  and 
commemoration  of  rustic  festivals  and  holidays,  and 
the  praises  or  reproaches  which  ho. pours  forth  to 
his  mistresses ;  for  it  does  not  seem  that  he  exactly 
parallels  his  co-mates  Catullus  and  Propertius  in  ex- 
alting his  Delia  to  the  same  unapproached  throne 
as  Lesbia  or  Cynthia.  Still  the  history  of  his  loves 
demands  quite  as  distinct  a  commemoration  and  illus- 
tration as  that  of  those  of  his  fellows;  and  it  will  there- 
fore be  convenient  to  reserve  it  to  another  chapter, 
gathering  up  into  this  present  sketch  what  little 
remains  to  tell  of  the  poet's  biography  distinct  from 
these.  If  we  may  take  Ovid's  contributions  to  the 
record,  it  will  be  found  in  his  "  Tristia"  that  the  fates 
allowed  them  no  time  for  intimacy,  but  that  Tibullus 
was  read  and  known  and  popular  in  the  reign  of 
Augustus, — not,  however,  through  any  special  culti- 
vation of  an  imperial  patron,  whom  he  invariably 
ignores,  though  not  because  he  had  had  no  overtures 


ICO  TIBULLUS. 

to  become  a  bard  of  the  empire.  Enough  for  him  to 
be  stanch  to  an  independent  Eoman  noble,  the  most 
virtuous  of  his  class,  and  to  watch  his  opportunities  of 
a  well-timed  poetical  compliment  to  him  or  his.  Thus 
when  a  rural  feast  is  kept,  and  all  are  drinking  healths 
and  making  merry,  the  health  of  the  absent  hero,  Mes 
sala,  is  the  toast  he  passes  as  an  excuse  for  the  glass 
(El.  lib.  ii.  1).  •  Another  special  and  appropriate  poem 
(ii.  5)  is  written  in  honour  of  the  eldest  son  of  Mes- 
sala,  Marcus  Valerius  Messalinus,  and  of  bis  election 
into  the  College  of  Fifteen  to  guard  and  inspect 
the  Sibylline  books  in  the  Capitol,  of  which  books 
he  maintains  the  credit  by  pointing  to  the  predicted 
eruption  of  Mount  JEtna  and  eclipse  of  the  sun  in  the 
fated  year  of  J.ulius  Caesar's  assassination.  We  hear 
very  little  indeed  of  our  poet  from  his  contemporaries, 
and  next  to  nothing  from  him  of  them,  out  of  the 
range  of  the  Messaline  family, — a  proof  of  that  addic- 
tion to  rural  pursuits  and  privacy,  which,  along  with 
his  loves,  formed  the  staple  of  his  muse.  Even  his 
death,  as  pictured  by  Ovid,  looks  exceedingly  like  a 
cento  made  up  out  of  his  own  elegies ;  for  that  poet 
(Amor.,  iii.  9)  makes  his  mother  close  his  eyes,  his 
sister  hang  over  his  couch  and  watch  his  pyre  with 
dishevelled  hair,  and  his  mistresses  lay  claim  to  his 
preference  at  that  sad  last  ceremony,  in  language  that 
may  well  have  been  framed  upon  a  study  of  the  lan- 
guage of  Tibullus,  when,  in  El.  i.  Ill,  he  anticipates 
death  afar  from  these  last  tributes  at  Corcyra.  In 
the  absence  of  testimony  we  may  infer  tliat  he  died 
peacefully   at   home  —  peacefully,    though  somewhat 


THE  LIFE  OF  ALBIUS  TIBULLUS.  101 

immaturely.  Domitius  Marsus  reappears  in  Mr  Crans- 
toun's  quatrain — 

"  Thee,  young  Tibullus,  Death  too  early  sent 
To  roam  with  Virgil  o'er  Elysium's  plains, 
That  none  might  longer  breathe  soft  love's  lament. 
Or  sing  of  royal  wars  in  martial  strains  ; " 

and  it  is  but  fair  to  add,  from  Professor  Nichol's  ad- 
mirable version  of  the  "  Mors  Tibulli,"  Ovid's  graceful 
asseveration  that  "  Albius  is  not  dead ; "  but  that,  if 
aught  remains  beyond  the  Stygian  flood — 

"  Refined  Tibullus  !  thou  art  joined  to  those 
Living  in  calm  communion  with  the  blest ; 
In  peaceful  urn  thy  quiet  bones  repose  : 

May  earth  lie  lightly  where  thine  ashes  rest  ! " 

—(Am,  iii.  9.) 

Tlie  present  may  be  a  convenient  place  for  stating 
briefly  that  that  portion  of  the  Elegies  attributed  to 
Tibullus  which  is  unquestionably  authentic  is  limited 
to  the  first  and  second  books;  and  that  the  first  alone, 
in  all  probability,  had  the  advantage  of  his  own  revi- 
sion and  preparation  for  the  press.  Amongst  the  argu- 
ments against  the  authenticity  of  the  third  and  fourth 
Looks,  there  are  some  which  can  hardly  bo  met  by 
the  cleverest  special  pleading,  though  wo  confess  that 
Mr  Cranstoun  has  shown  considerable  ingenuity  in 
his  conservative  view  of  the  question.  It  is,  however, 
more  probable  that  the  elegies  of  the  third  book, 
which  treat  of  the  loves  of  Lygdamus  and  Nesera  for 
the  most  part,  and  which  perceptibly  lack  the  spirit 
of  Tibullus,  whilst  they  evince  quite  a  dilTorent  talent, 


102  TIBULLUS. 

where  they  exhibit  any,  were  the  work  of  some  other 
poet  in  Messala's  circle,  whose  name,  or  else  nom  de 
2olum.G,  may  have  been  Lygdamus.  As  to  the  elegies 
of  the  fourth  book  (apart  from  the  first  poem,  which  is 
epic  or  heroic,  and  is  panegyrical  of  Messala,  though, 
for  the  most  part,  a  raw  and  juvenile  production,  not 
worthy  of  TibuUus's  genius),  the  general  view  is  that 
they  are  worthier  of  Tibullus  than  the  third  book,  but 
more  probably  the  work  of  a  female  hand ;  and  with 
one  or  two  exceptions,  that  of  the  Sulpicia,  a  woman 
of  noble  birth,  and  of  Messala's  circle,  whose  love  for 
Cerinthus  or  Cornutus  is  their  chief  feature.  One 
thing  is  certain,  that  the  range  of  the  two  earlier 
books  will  furnish  abundant  samples  of  each  charac- 
teristic vein  of  the  genuine  Tibullus,  who,  though  Dr 
Arnold  coupled  him  as  a  bad  poet  with  Propertius, 
and  Niebuhr  charged  him  with  sentimentality,  is 
nevertheless  a  poet  of  singular  sweetness  of  versifica- 
tion, though  unequal  to  his  later  elegiac  brother  in 
force  and  strength.  Perhaps  the  adverse  criticisms 
made  upon  him  are  due  to  the  narrow  range  of  his 
themes ;  but  he  is  worth  a  study,  no  less  for  the  in- 
dependence of  his  mind  and  muse,  than  for  the  almost 
utter  absence  of  any  Alexandrine  influence  on  his 
style,  syntax,  and  language.  Of  pure  taste  and  great 
finish,  his  genius  is  Italian  to  the  core ;  and  whilst  he 
may  lack  the  various  graces  of  other  poets  of  the  em- 
pire before  and  after  him,  he  is  second  to  none  in  a 
tender  simplicity  and  a  transparent  terseness,  which  are 
peculiarly  his  own.  It  may  not  be  amiss  to  close  this 
chapter  with  the  just  eulogium  of  this  poet  by  Mr  Grans- 


THE  LIFE  OF  ALBIUS  TIBULLUS.  103 

toun,  the  most  appreciative,  and,  on  the  -whole,  tlie 
most  successful  of  Tibullus's  translators.  "  His  love 
of  home  and  friends,  his  enjoyment  of  the  country,  of 
hills  and  dales,  of  shepherds  and  sheepfolds,  of  smil- 
ing meadows  and  murmuring  rivulets,  of  purple  vine- 
yards and  yellow  corn-fields,  and  of  the  innocence  and 
simplicity  of  earlier  days,  com'oined  with  that  tender 
melancholy  which  ever,  cloud-like,  threw  a  shadow 
o'er  his  brow,  gives  him  an  almost  romantic  interest 
in  the  eyes  of  modem  readers ;  and  will  always  secure 
for  him,  with  lovers  of  rural  scenes,  one  of  the  most 
enviable  positions  among  the  sons  of  ancient  song." 


CHAPTEE    n. 

TIBULLUS   AND    HIS    LOVES. 

With  his  domestic  qualities,  his  plaintive  tone,  and 
predisposition  to  contented  enjoyment  of  rural  happi- 
ness, Tibullus,  under  other  conditions  and  another 
creed,  might  have  found  the  ideal  which  he  sought;  hut 
subjected  to  the  caprices  and  inconstancy  of  one  mis- 
tress after  another,  his  life  was  alloyed  by  a  series  of 
unprosperous  loves.  If  the  third  book,  as  has  been 
stated,  is  in  all  probability  the  work  of  another  hand, 
the  sole  attachment  that  promised  a  consummation 
in  marriage,  that  with  the  compatible  but  uncertain 
Nesera,  did  not  come  upon  the  list  of  his  loves.  It 
was  Delia,  or,  as  her  true  name  appears  to  have  been, 
Plania  (which  the  poet  altered  to  affect  the  Greek), 
who  first  seriously  engaged  Tibullus's  affections,  and 
secured  the  tribute  of  his  most  perfect  elegies.  In 
condition,  she  appears  to  have  been,  like  the  Cynthia 
of  Propertius,  a  hetsera,  but  of  respectable  parentage ; 
and  in  some  passages  she  is  spoken  of  as  if  a  married 
woman.  The  poet,  at  any  rate,  found  a  bar  to  mar- 
riage with  her  of  some  kind ;  and  probably  the  in- 
ducement of  a  richer  as  well  as  a  more  permanent 


TIBULLUS  AND  HIS  LOVES.  105 

connection,  induced  her  to  transfer  herself  to  the 
wealthy  spouse  whom  Tibullus  pictures  in  his  sixth 
elegy  (Book  i.)  as  deceived  and  outraged  by  her  infidel- 
ities. But  we  ought  to  take  Delia's  self  as  painted  in 
our  poet's  first  and  happiest  colours.  The  first  six 
elegies  of  the  first  book  (with  the  exception  of  the 
fourth)  tell  'more  or  less  of  his  love  for  her,  and  are 
amongst  the  highest  developments  of  his  poetic  power. 
His  allusion  in  the  fifth  elegy  to  the  beginning  of  her 
influence  affords,  at  the  same  time,  some  clue  to  her 
personal  charms.  In  declaring  that  her  spell  is  so 
potent  that,  though  they  have  quarrelled,  he  cannot 
forget  DeHa  amidst  other  charmers,  he  analyses  the 
nature  of  her  ascendancy.     Was  it — 

"  By  spells  ?    No,  by  fair  shoulders,  queenly  charms, 
And  golden  locks,  she  lit  this  witching  flame  ; 
Lovely  as  to  Hasmonian  Peleus'  arms, 
On  bridled  fish  the  Nereid  Thetis  came." 

There  are  indications,  too,  that  she  could  be  kindly 
and  affectionate,  and  possessed  such  influence  over  him 
through  her  tenderness,  albeit  short-lived  and  incon- 
stant, as  to  make  him  sit  light  on  hopes  of  advancement 
from  a  patron,  and  rather  disposed  to  spend  his  days 
with  her  in  silken  dalliance  and  in  rural  quietude. 
Eece  signum : — 

**  How  Rweet  to  lie  and  hear  the  wild  winds  roar, 
While  to  our  breast  the  one  beloved  we  stniin  ; 
Or,  when  the  cold  South's  sleety  torrents  pour. 
To  sleep  secure,  lulled  by  the  plashing  rain  ! 


106  TIBULLUS. 

This  lot  be  mine  :  let  him  be  rich,  'tis  fair, 

Who  braves  the  wrathful  sea  and  tempests  drear  ; 

Oh,  rather  perish  gold  and  gems,  than  e'er 
One  fair  one  for  my  absence  shed  a  tear  ! 

Dauntless,  Messala,  scour  the  earth  and  main 
To  deck  thy  home  with  warfare's  spoils — 'tis  well ; 

Me  here  a  lovely  maiden's  charms  enchain, 
At  her  hard  door  a  sleepless  sentinel. 

Delia,  I  court  not  praise,  if  mine  thou,  be  ; 

Let  men  cry  lout  and  clown — I'll  bear  the  brand : 
In  my  last  moments  let  me  gaze  on  thee. 

And  dying,  clasp  thee  with  my  faltering  hand." 

— (i.  45-60.)  C. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  Tibullus,  beyond  almost  any 
other  of  liis  elegiac  brotherliood,  that  a  tender  melan- 
choly breathes  constantly  through  his  poetry,  and  that 
the  most  pleasing  pictures  of  serene  content  are  anon 
overclouded  by  a  tinge  of  sad  forecast.  Indeed,  he 
makes  the  uncertain  but  lowejring  future  an  argument 
for  using  the  present  oppoi'tunities  of  enjoyment. 
Thus,  in  the  close  of  the  elegy  from  which  we  have 
just  quoted,  he  mingles  gay  and  grave  : — 

"  Join  we  our  loves  while  yet  the  fates  allow : 

Gloom-shrouded  Death  will  soon  draw  nigh  our  door- 
Dull  age  creeps  on.     Love's  honeyed  flatteries  grow 
Out  of  all  season,  where  the  locks  are  hoar  " — D. 

but  seemingly  in  the  end  allows  the  gay  spirit  to 
predominate.  Next  apparently  in  order  to  the  above 
elegy  comes  one  composed  by  Tibullus  on  his  sickbed 
in  Corey ra  (El.  iii.,  bk.  1),  and  nominally  addressed 
to  Messala,  though  the  burden  of  it  first  and  last  is 


TIBULLUS  AND  HIS  LOVES.  107 

Delia,  and  Delia  only.  Out  of  it  we  glean  not  a  few- 
notices  of  Roman  customs — e.g.,  the  resort  of  Delia  to 
the  luck  of  the  dice-box  to  ascertain,  before  he  started, 
the  prospects  her  lover  had  of  safe  return,  in  spite  of 
the  favourable  nature  of  which  she  had  wept  oft  and 
ominously ;  the  misgivings  of  the  poet  himself,  based 
on  ill  omens;  and  the  procrastination  of  his  voyage,  of 
which  he  laid  the  fault  on  the  Jew's  Sabbath  being 
ill-starred  for  beginning  a  journey.  Delia  too  con- 
sulted, we  find,  the  fashionable  goddess  of  Roman 
ladies  of  her  period,  Egyptian  Isis,  and  clanged  the 
brazen  sistra,  wherewith  she  was  worshipped,  with  as 
much  devout  enthusiasm  as  the  best  of  them.  The 
poet  assures  himself  that  if  her  vows  are  heard,  and 
the  goddess  answers  her  prayers,  homage,  and  offer- 
ings, he  shall  rise  from  this  bed  of  sickness,  and, 
better  than  all,  eschew  war  and  its  fatigues  and  alarms 
for  the  rest  of  his  life-span.  These,  he  suggests,  are 
the  indirect  cause  of  his  present  serious  illness ;  and 
some  iine  couplets  contrast,  in  TibuUus's  own  view, 
the  reigns  of  peaceful  Saturn  and  his  war-and-dea th- 
ieving son.  In  a  strain  of  mild  depression  he  goes  on 
to  write  his  own  epitaph  as  prefatory  to  an  unfavour- 
able termination  to  his  malady ;  but  it  is  amusing  to 
note  that  he  counts  upon  Elysium  in  the  after-world 
on  the  score  of  his  true  love  and  stanchuess  in  the 
present  life : — 

**  But  me,  the  facile  child  of  tender  Love, 
Will  Venus  waft  to  blest  Elysium's  ])lain8. 
Where  dance  and  song  resound,  and  every  grove 
Rings  with  clear-throated  warblers'  dulcet  strains. 


108  TIBULLUS. 

Here  lands  iintilled  their  richest  treasures  yield — 
Here  sweetest  cassia  all  untended  grows — 

With  lavish  lap  the  earth,  in  every  field, 
Outpours  the  blossom  of  the  fragrant  rose. 

Here  bands  of  youths  and  tender  maidens  chime 
In  love's  sweet  lures,  and  pay  the  untiring  vow  ; 

Here  reigns  the  lover,  slain  in  youthhood's  prime, 
With  myrtle  garland  round  his  honoured  brow." 

—(El.  iii.)  C. 

It  does  not  become  directly  obvious  why  after  this 
happy  prospect  the  poet  goes  off  at  a  tangent  to  an- 
other and  less  inviting  portion  of  the  after- world,  the 
abode  of  the  guilty  in  Tartarus,  where  Tisiphone 
shakes  her  snaky  tresses,  and  Ixion,  Tityos,  Tantalus, 
and  the  daughters  of  Danaus  atone  their  treasons 
against  Juno,  Jove,  and  Venus.  But  the  clue  to  the 
riddle  is  a  little  jealousy  on  the  poet's  part.  He  un- 
disguisedly  suggests  that  with  these  "  convicts  under- 
going sentence  "  is  the  best  place  for  a  certain  lover 
of  Delia's,  who  took  an  undue  interest  in  Tibullus's 
foreign  service,  and  wished  in  his  heart  that  it  might 
be  of  long  duration  (iii.  21,  .22).  Too  polite  and  too 
affectionate  to  hint  that  such  ought  to  be  her  desti- 
nation also,  if  untrue  to  her  vows  to  himself,  the  poet 
adroitly  bids  her  fence  about  her  chastity  with  the 
company  of  her  trusty  duenna  or  nurse,  to  tell  her 
stories,  and  beguile  the  hours  of  lamplight  with  the 
distaff  and  the  thread.  Taking  heart  from  this  pretty 
picture,  Avhicli  his  fancy  has  Avrought  upon  a  pattern 
of  Lucretian  precedent,  not  out  of  date  it  would  seem 
in  good  Eoman  houses,  though  it  might  be  imaj^ina- 


TIBULLUS  AND  HIS  LOVES.  109 

tive  to  connect  it  with  Delia's,  Tibullus  seems  to  change 
his  mind  about  leaving  his  bones  in  Corcyra,  or  ■wing- 
ing his  spirit's  flight  to  Elysium,  and  to  prepare  his 
mistress  for  his  unexpected  return  : — 

"  So  may  I,  when  thy  maids,  with  working  spent, 
And  prone  to  sleep,  their  task  by  turns  remit, 
Upon  thee,  as  by  Heaven's  commission  sent, 
Come  suddenly,  with  none  to  herald  it. 

And  thou,  in  dishabille,  thy  locks  astray, 
Barefoot  to  meet  thy  lover,  Delia,  run  ! 

Goddess  of  mom,  with  rosy  steeds,  I  pray, 
Bring  on  betimes  that  all-aiispicious  sun." — D. 

Whether  thus  unheralded  or  not,  Tibullus  certainly 
realised  his  desire  of  a  safe  return  to  home  and  Delia. 
The  second  elegy  in  the  printed  order  appears  to  suit 
the  date  of  the  year  after  this  return — b.c.  29,  and 
discovers  our  poet  in  anything  but  the  happiest  rela- 
tions with  his  mistress.  Shut  out,  as  was  too  often 
the  lover's  portion  in  the  experience  of  the  writers  of 
Latin  elegy,  from  his  mistress's  doors,  and  forestalled, 
it  should  seem,  by  a  lover  more  favoured  for  the 
moment,  he  describes  himself  as  solacing  his  chagrin 
in  cups,  and  in  prayers  to  Delia  to  have  recourse  to 
Venus  for  courage  to  elude  her  keepers.  The  goddess 
of  good  fortune  is  Venus,  and  "Venus  helps  the  brave." 
Under  her  auspices,  and  in  her  service,  the  poet  makes 
light  of  his  dangerous  and  unseasonable  vigils  : — 

"  A  fig  for  troubles  ;  so  my  Delia's  door 

Ope,  and  her  fingers  snapt  my  entrance  bid. 
*Twere  well,  though,  that  each  sex  to  pry  forbore ; 
For  Venus  wills  her  laches  to  be  hid." — D. 


110  TIBULLUS. 

But  lest  such  encouragements  should  not  suffice  to 
influence  his  coy  inamorata,  or  her  fears  of  offending 
the  so-called  "  husband,"  who  withholds  her  from  him, 
should  become  confirmed,  Tibullus  adduces  the  assur- 
ances of  a  witch  whom  he  has  lately  consulted  to  show 
that  a  way  may  be  smoothed  for  their  interviews  as 
heretofore.  Of  this  witch  Tibullus  gives  a  highly 
poetic  description : — 

"  Her  have  I  known  the  stars  of  heaven  to  charm, 

The  rapid  river's  course  by  spells  to  turn, 
Cleave  graves,  bid  bones  descend  from  pyres  still  warm. 

Or  coax  the  Manes  forth  from  silent  urn. 
Hell's  rabble  now  she  calls  with  magic  scream, 

Now  bids  them  milk-sprent  to  their  homes  below : 
At  will  lights  cloudy  skies  with  sunshine's  gleam, 

At  wUl  'neath  summer  orbs  collects  the  snow. 
Alone  she  holds  Medea's  magic  lore  : 

None  else,  'tis  said,  hath  power  Hell's  dogs  to  tame : 
She  taught  me  chaunts,  that  wondrous  glamour  pour, 

If,  spitting  thrice,  we  thrice  rehearse  the  same." 

—(El.  ii.  43-55)     D. 

The  services  of  this  functionary  Tibullus  professes 
to  have  secured  to  throw  dust  in  his  rival's  eyes, 
though  for  the  matter  of  that  he  lets  fall  a  hint  that, 
had  he  preferred  it,  she  could  have  given  him  a  spell 
that  would  enable  him  to  forget  her.  But  that  was 
not  his  wish,  the  earnest  desire  rather  of  a  lasting  and 
mutual  love.  It  would  seem  to  be  with  a  covert 
reference  to  his  rival,  a  soldier  probably,  enriched  with 
spoils  and  loot,  and  divided  as  occasion  suited  betwixt 
the  fields  of  Venus  and  of  Mars,  that  Tibullus  drew 
the  counterpart  pictures  of  peace  and  war  that  follow, 


TIBULLUS  AND  HIS  LOVES.  Ill 

and  "wondered  why,  as  liis  desires  were  so  simple, 
some  adverse  god  denied  him  their  fruition.  He  can- 
not tax  his  memory  with  sacrilege  or  slight  to  Venus, 
and  protests  that  if  he  can  have  done  any  wrong 
unwittingly,  he  is  ready  to  make  full  atonement. 
Possessed,  however,  of  a  conviction  at  whose  door 
the  estrangement  of  Delia  is  to  be  laid,  he  ends  his 
elegy  with  a  warning  to  the  successful  lover  that  his 
turn  is  to  follow.  This  warning  illustrates  the  fate 
of  the  trifler  with  affection  and  mocker  of  love,  who 
in  his  old  age  succumbs  to  its  chains  himself,  and 
whom  his  neighbours  see — 

"  With  quivering  voice  his  tender  flatteries  frame," 
And  trim  with  trembling  hands  his  hoary  hair  ; 
Lounge  at  the  dear  one's  threshold,  blind  to  shame, 
And  stop  her  handmaids  in  the  thoroughfare. 

While  boys  and  youths  thronged  round  with  faces  grave, 
Each  spitting  on  his  own  soft  breast  in  turn — 

But  spare  me,  Venus,  spare  thy  bounden  slave  ! 
Why  dost  thou  ruthlessly  thy  harvests  bum  ? " 

This  spitfing  into  the  bosom,  a  coarse  and  superstitious 
deprecation  of  evil  or  distasteful  objects  and  conse- 
quences, common  to  the  ancients,  and  still  common 
among  the  Greeks,  means  in  this  case  contempt  for 
the  old  lover  caught  in  his  own  toils,  and  may  pos- 
sibly be  meant  to  convey  a  sly  hint  to  Delia  that 

"  Perchance  her  love  to  every  one 
May  make  her  to  be  loved  by  none." 

By  the  next  year  apparently,  the  date  of  the  fifth 
elegy,  matters  are  worse  between  Tibullus  and  Delia ; 


112  TIBULLUS. 

but  the  poet  has  abandoned  his  professed  unconcern, 
and,  in  his  distraction  at  lengthened  separation,  de- 
scribes himself  in  a  bad  way  : — 

"  Driven  like  a  top  which  boys,  with  ready  art, 
Keep  spinning  roimd  upon  a  level  floor." 

—(El.  v.A  3,  4.) 

Ho  descends  from  his  vantage-ground  of  complaint 
and  makes  a  plenary  recantation,  enumerating  at  the 
same  time  arguments  of  services  rendered,  such  as 
nursing  her  through  a  long  and  serious  illness,  and 
consulting  enchantresses  and  approaching  altars  with 
a  view  to  her  recovery.  Fondly,  he  adds,  he  had 
dreamed  that  the  first-fruits  of  this  would  be  the 
return  of  her  attachment,  a  reconciliation  which  would 
enable  him  to  carry  out  a  scheme  of  rural  happiness 
for  the  rest  of  their  lives  on  his  estate  at  Pedum,  in 
which  each  should  perform  their  appropriate  household 
duties,  and  Delia's  province  should  be  undisputed  rule 
over  all  the  slaves  born  in  the  house,  himself  included 
as  the  merest  cipher.  She  was  to  discharge  votive 
offerings  to  the  rural  god,  to  pay  tithe  and  first-fruit 
for  the  folds  and  crops,  and,  when  the  conquering 
hero  Messala  deigned  to  visit  their  retreat,  to  pluck 
him  the  sweetest  apples  from  the  choicest  trees,  and 
herself  to  wait  upon  him  with  a  befitting  banquet. 
The  pretty  domestic  picture  includes  a  vision  of  teem- 
ing baskets  of  grapes,  and  the  same  vats  of  pressed 
must  which  we  read  of  in  the  ballad  of  Horatius  as 
foaming  "  round  the  white  feet  of  laughing  girls." 
But,  sighs  Tibullus,   this  fancv  sketch  has  come  to 


TIBULLUS  AND  HIS  LOVES.  113 

nought.  East  and  south  winds  even  now  are  bearing 
tlie  fonil  dream  away.  Another  is  blest,  and  reaps  the 
fruit  of  his  own  vows  and  solicitude.  In  a  companion 
elegy,  which  recent  editors  have  seen  fit  to  distinguish 
from  that  on  which  we  have  just  touched,  the  failure 
of  his  endeavours  to  console  himself  with  some  other 
fair  one,  or  drown  care  in  the  wine-cup,  is  vividly  de- 
scribed ;  and  Delia's  infatuation  with  her  wealthier 
admirer  attributed  to  the  hired  services  of  a  witch, 
against  whom  Tibullus  pours  out  a  highly  poetical 
volley  of  imprecations.  Such  a  character,  described 
as  heralded  by  the  screech-owl's  hoot,  and  hungrily 
gnawing  the  bones  which  the  wolves  have  discarded 
in  the  cemeteries,  reminds  one  of  the  *  Pharmaceutria ' 
in  the  Idylls  of  Theocritus,  and  Eclogues  of  Virgil, 
— or,  more  familiarly,  of  the  Ghoules  in  the  Arabian 
Nights.  Still,  however,  there  are  harder  words  for  all 
others  than  Delia,  whose  accessibility  to  the  "  golden 
key"  is  lightly  noticed,  while  upon  the  successful 
rival  is  lavished  a  highly-drawn  picture  of  the  pros- 
pect awaiting  him  in  the  wheel  of  chance  : — 

"  E'en  now  before  her  threshold  not  in  vain 

An  anxious  lover  stops  and  prowls  ;  nay,  more, 
Looks  round,  pretends  to  pass,  returns  again. 
And  stands  and  coughs  before  her  very  door. 

I  cannot  tell  what  Love  may  have  in  store — 
He  works  by  stealth  :  but  now  enjoy  thy  dream, 

While  Fate  permits  to  worship  and  adore ; 
Thy  boat  is  gliding  on  a  glassy  stream." 

— (V.»  71-76.)  C. 

StiU  less  satisfactory  are  the  relations  of  Delia  and 
A.C.S.S.,  ToL  iii.  H 


114  TIBULLUS. 

Tibullus  when  next  we  meet  them  in  the  sixth  elegy; 
for  now  a  year  more  has  flown,  and  the  poet  is  chang- 
ing his  tactics,  and  twitting  the  present  possessor  of 
Delia's  affections  with  her  inconsistency,  of  which  no 
one  has  had  more  experience.  She  is  now  apparently 
married  to  her  rich  admirer ;  but  Tibullus  has  no  idea 
of  letting  him  have  an  easy  pillow — if,  indeed,  the  elegy 
is  meant  for  his  perusal,  and  not  rather  as  banter  for  the 
fickle  mistress  who  has  given  the  poet  up.  The  tone, 
in  either  case,  is  not  such  as  to  present  the  poet  in  a 
pleasant  or  natural  light,  when  he  mockingly,  and  in  a 
style  reminding  us  of  Ovid  in  his  *  Art  of  Love,'  enu- 
merates his  own  past  devices  to  gain  access  to  Delia, 
and  to  foil  her  guards  and  duennas,  and  quotes  his 
experience  as  worth  buying,  on  the  principle  of  setting 
a  thief  to  catch  a  thief.  As,  however,  in  such  loves, 
it  would  be  quite  out  of  course  to  know  one's  own 
mind,  it  is  not  a  surprise  to  find  the  poet,  in  another 
poem  of  the  same  year,  evidently  clinging  to.  the  hope 
of  a  reconciliation,  even  after  what  should  have  seemed 
an  unpardonable  afi'ront  and  insult ;  and  striving  to 
ingratiate  himself  with  Delia  by  favourable  mention 
of  her  mother — "a  golden  old  woman,"  because  she 
has  always  looked  kindly  on  his  addresses — who,  he 
hopes,  may  live  many  years,  and  with  whom  he  would 
be  quite  content  to  go  halves  in  the  residue  of  years 
yet  in  store  for  him — though  not,  we  conclude,  in  tho 
sense  of  spending  them  with  her.  At  any  rate,  he 
goes  the  length  of  saying  that  he  shall  always  love  her, 
and  her  daughter  for  her  sake,  though  he  would  be 
glad  if  she  could  teach  that  daughter  to  behave  herself. 


TIBULLUS  AND  HIS  LOVES.  115 

The  mention  of  the  ribbon  (vitta),  which  confined  the 
hair  of  freebom  ladies  before  and  after  marriage  to 
distinguish  them  from  frailer  sisters,  and  of  the  stole, 
which  was  a  distinctive  part  of  the  Roman  matron'^ 
dress,  as  forming  no  part  of  Delia's  attire,  seems  to 
cast  a  doubt  upon  her  having  even  up  to  this  time 
formed  any  legal  or  permanent  connection ;  and  though 
he  hopes  the  contrary,  it  is  plain  that  Tibullus  fore- 
casts for  his  Delia  the  fate  of  a  fickle  flirt,  whose  latter 
end  is  sketched  at  the  close  of  the  sixth  elegy : — 

"  For  the  false  girl,  in  want  when  youth  has  fled, 
Draws  out  with  trembling  hand  the  twisted  thread, 
And  forms  of  warp  and  woof  her  weary  piece, 
Biting  the  tufts  from  off  the  snowy  fleece, 
Wliile  bands  of  youth  behold  her,  overjoyed. 
And  swear  she's  marvellously  well  employed  ; 
Venus  on  high  disdains    er  every  tear. 
And  warns  the  faithless  she  can  be  severe." — C. 

So  far  as  Tibullus  was  concerned,  it  would  seem  that 
his  patience  finally  failed  not  very  long  after  this  was 
written,  and  biographers  fill  Delia's  place,  after  the  last 
rupture,  with  one  who  is  unnamed  in  his  poetry,  and 
unnoticed  by  Ovid  in  his  references  to  TibuUus's  loves. 
The  heartless  Glycera's  connection  with  him  rests,  in 
fact,  on  a  well-known  ode  of  Horace ;  nor  does  the 
allusion  to  her  in  it  (Ode  i.  33)  amount  to  much  more 
than  a  philosophic  counsel  not  to  take  on  so,  because 
the  perjured  fair  one  has  made  a  younger  choice.  Our 
poet  seems  to  have  met  with  his  usual  luck,  perhaps 
because  too  sentimental  and  in  eaniest  for  the  merce- 
nary charmers  with  whom  he  came  in  contact    It  has 


116  TIBULLUS. 

been  supposed  that  the  thirteenth  elegy  of  the  fourth 
book  may  be  a  sample  of  the  "  miserable  or  dolorous 
elegies  "  which  he  wrote  to  her,  and  to  which  Horace 
alludes ;  but  if  so,  it  "  protests  too  much,"  exhibits 
too  little  independence,  and  rests  too  seriously  upon 
Glycera  for  his  happiness,  to  be  likely  to  hold  her 
afFectious.  Women  of  her  class  are  not  really  of  one 
mind  with  the  love-sick  wooer  who  wishes  "  the  desert 
were  his  dwelling-place,  with  one  sweet  spirit  for  his 
minister ; "  or,  as  Tibullus's  mode  of  expressing  the 
same  sentiment  is  Englished — 

"  Then  the  untrodden  way  were  life's  delight — 
Life's  loved  asylum  the  sequestered  wood  : 
Thou  art  the  rest  of  cares  :  in  murky  night 
A  radiant  star,  a  crowd  in  solitude." — C. 

Glycera  must  have  preferred  a  crowd  of  a  more  normal 
character,  for  ere  long  (it  would  seem  within  four  or 
five  years  after  the  rupture  with  Delia)  he  is  found 
in  the  toils  of  the  mercenary  and  avaricious  Nemesis, 
to  whom  he  addressed  the  love  elegies  of  the  second 
book.  If  his  amour  with  Glycera  may  be  dated  B.C. 
24  or  23,  the  connection  with  ^Nemesis,  who  saw  the 
last  of  him,  began  about  the  year  B.c.  21.  It  does 
not  seem  to  have  had  the  excuse  of  such  attractions 
as  were  possessed  by  Delia,  for  the  poet  is  silent  as  to 
her  personal  beauty,  although  she  exercised  that  in- 
fluence over  him,  and  made  those  exacting  demands 
on  his  finances,  which  bespeak  a  fascination  quite  as 
overmastering.  When  we  first  hear  of  her,  she  has 
left  him  for  the  coimtry  (El.  iiL  bk.  2),  and  as  he 
puts  in  the  most  exquisite  of  vignettes^ 


TIBULLUS  AND  HIS  LOVES.  117 

"  Lo  !  Venus'  self  has  sought  the  happy  plains, 
And  Love  is  taking  lessons  at  the  plough  " — C. 

of  course  he  needs  must  follow  her,  content  to  perform 
the  most  menial  of  peasant's  duties,  if  only  he  may 
bask  in  her  sunshine.  A  precedent  for  such  a  course 
is  adduced  in  the  mythic  servitude  of  Apollo  in  the 
halls  of  Admetus — 

•*  The  fair  Apollo  fed  Admetus'  steers. 

Nor  aught  availed  his  lyre  and  locks  unshorn ; 
No  herbs  could  soothe  his  soul  or  dry  his  tears, 
The  powers  of  medicine  were  all  outworn. 

He  drove  the  cattle  forth  at  morn  and  eve. 
Curdled  the  milk,  and  when  his  task  was  done, 

Of  pliant  osiers  wove  the  wicker  sieve, 

Leaving   chance  holes  through  which  the  whey 
might  run. 

How  oft  pale  Dian  blushed,  and  felt  a  pang, 
To  see  him  bear  a  calf  across  the  plain  1 

And  oft  as  in  the  deepening  dell  he  sang. 

The  lowing  oxen  broke  the  hallowed  strain." — C. 

"  Happy  days  of  old,"  sighs  the  poet,  "  when  the  gods 
were  not  ashamed  of  undisguised  bondage  to  Love ; " 
thojigh,  as  he  adds — 

**  Love's  now  a  jest ;  yet  I,  who  bow  to  love, 

"Would  rather  be  a  jest  than  loveless  god." 

A  tirade  which  follows  in  this  poem  against  war  and 
lust  of  gain  leads  to  the  suspicion  tliat  now,  as  probably 
with  Delia,  some  richer  mercantile  or  military  rival  is 
in  the  poet's  thoughts.  The  pictui'o  drawn  of  the  spoils 
of  land  and  sea,  the  foreign  stone  imported  to  Italy  and 


118  TIBULLUS. 

dragged  along  Roman  thoroughfares,  and  the  moles, 
wliich  stem  hitherto  resistless  seas,  and  protect  the 
fish  against  the  sway  of  winter,  is  set  over  against  the 
simplicity  of  TibuUus's  menage  and  primitive  establish- 
ment j  but,  as  if  he  knew  beforehand  that  her  taste 
would  repudiate  such  simplicity,  he  affirms  that  if 
luxury  and  expense  be  the  penchant  of  Nemesis,  he 
will  turn  his  thoughts  to  pillage  and  rapine,  to  procure 
her  the  means  of  it.  His  own  tastes  recoil  from  fashion 
and  finery,  and  go  back  to  the  pastoral  way  of  their 
ancestors,  but  he  is  prepared  to  sink  his  tastes — 

"  That  through  the  town  his  Nemesis  may  sail, 
Eyed  of  all  eyes,  for  those  rich  gifts  of  mine — 
The  Coan  maidens'  gauze-spun  robes  and  veil, 

Inwrought  and  streaked  with  many  a  golden  line." 

— D. 

Such  promises  and  professions  were  no  doubt  the  con- 
dition of  his  retaining  even  a  share  in  her  favour,  but 
a  misgiving  arises  that  he  competes  at  unequal  odds 
with  a  richer  upstart,  of  whom  he  bitterly  hints — 

"  The  truth  be  told,  he's  now  her  bosom's  lord. 

Whom  oft  of  old  the  slave-mart's  rule  compelled 
To  lift  to  view,  imported  from  abroad, 

The  foot-soles  which  a  tell-tale  chalk-mark  held." 

— D. 

Professions,  however,  in  Nemesis's  school,  are  nothing 
without  practice.  The  more  she  exacts,  the  faster 
becomes  his  bondage ;  and  he  is  not  long  in  finding 
that  it  was  a  delusion  to  dream  that  songs  and  love- 
ditties  would  countervail  more  substantial  presents — 

"  With  hollowed  palm  she  ever  craves  for  gold." 


TIBULLUS  AND  UIS  LOVES.  119 

It  is  of  no  use  for  poets  to  rail  against  luxury  and  the 
fashionable  temptations  to  female  extravagance  in 
Coan  robes  and  Eed  Sea  pearls ;  no  use  to  set  "  the 
girl  who  gives  to  song  what  gold  could  never  buy  "  over 
against  her  whose  principle  is  to  sell  herself  to  the 
highest  bidder.  Nemesis  is  not  the  sort  of  mistress  to 
be  wrought  upon  by  the  "  less  or  more  "  of  posthumous 
regrets,  and  so  Tibullus  resigns  himself  to  sacrifices 
which  his  instinct  tells  him  she  will  appreciate.  If 
her  cry  of  "  Give,  give  "  demands  it,  he  protests — 

**  My  dear  ancestral  home  I'll  set  to  sale — 
My  household  gods,  my  all  for  her  resign." 

After  this  protestation,  addressed  to  such  as  Nemesis, 
it  was  simply  a  poetical  surplusage  to  profess  to  be 
re^dy  to  drink  any  number  of  love-potions  ;  and  it  is 
satisfactory  to  bo  able  to  think  that  even  the  sacrifice 
of  his  patrimony  came  to  no  more  than  the  figure  of 
speech  that  it  was.  Nemesis  is  incidentally  mentioned 
in  the  complimentary  "  Elegy  to  M.  Valerius  Messali- 
nus,"  of  which  mention  has  been  made  already,  and 
of  which  the  date  was  about  B.c.  20,  in  terms  that  be- 
speak her  influence  over  the  poet's  mind  and  muse, 
and  imply  that  if  he  is  to  live  to  celebrate  in  verse  the 
family  of  Messala,  it  will  be  through  happy  relations 
with  her,  his  latest  love.  A  year  after — the  year 
before  that  of  his  death — another  elegy  (vi.  B.  ii.)  re- 
presents him  bent  on  following  his  friend  and  brother 
poet,  Macer,  to  the  wars,  by  way  of  escaping  Nemesis's 
caprices.  Till  now  he  has  allowed  hope  of  better 
treatment  to  sustain  him,  and  even  now  he  lays  the 


120      ,  TIBULLUS. 

blame  on  a  false  and  odious  go-between,  who  pleads 
her  mistress's  illness  or  absence  from  home,  when  her 
voice  gives  the  lie  to  the  excuse.  It  is  characteristic 
of  Tibullus  that  he  finds  it  almost  impossible  to  think 
any  evil  of  his  unscrupulous  enslavers,  and  always 
creates  a  deputy,  in  the  person  of  whom  they  receive 
his  reproaches  and  curses.  In  the  year  b.c.  18,  it 
would  appear,  Tibullus  succumbed  to  repeated  in- 
roads on  a  health  always  delicate,  and  died,  as  we 
learn  from  Ovid,  with  his  hand  clasped  in  that  of 
Nemesis.  The  picture  of  his  obsequies  drawn  by  the 
author  of  the  'Amores'  may  be  in  part  a  fancy 
sketch,  where,  for  example,  it  represents  Delia  and 
Nemesis  embracing  at  the  funeral  pyre,  and  the  newer 
love  waving  the  earlier  off  with  assurances  that — 

"  Dying,  he  clasped  his  failing  hand  in  mine  ; " 

whilst  Delia  faltered  out  that,  in  her  reign,  death  and 
failing  health  were  not  so  much  as  thought  of;  but  it 
is  consistent  enough  that  the  avaricious  Nemesis  may 
have  closed  his  eyes,  and  taken  the  slight  needful 
pains  to  keep  her  ascendancy  to  the  end.  Whilst  the 
chapter  of  Tibullus's  "  generally  unprosperous  loves  " 
cannot  be  regarded  as  in  all  respects  edifying,  it  is 
essentially  part  and  parcel  of  his  life  and  poetry,  and, 
all  things  considered,  redounds  far  more — in  what  has 
been  seen — to  his  credit  and  goodness  of  heart  than  to 
that  of  his  successive  paramours. 


CHAPTER  m. 

TIBULLUS   IN   niS  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS   CAPACITY. 

Though  on  a  cursory  glance  it  might  appear  that 
Tibullus  was  wholly  absorbed  in  his  loves,  and  when 
suffering  depression  through  their  ill  success  took  a  » 
gloomy  view  of  the  world's  moral  government,  no 
careful  student  of  his  poetry  can  fail  to  notice  how 
stanch  an  observer  he  was  of  the  old  rites  and  customs 
of  his  fathers,  and  how  much  the  punctual  fulfilment 
of  the  ancient  ritual  of  his  country's  religion,  to  say 
nothing  of  its  later  and  foreign  accretions,  Avas  a  law 
to  him.  In  keeping  with  this  characteristic  religious- 
ness, he  duly  reverenced  with  offerings  of  first-fruits 
the  lone  stump  or  old  garland-wreathed  stone  which 
represented  the  god  of  the  country  in  the  fields  or 
crossways,  he  duly  kept  the  holidays  of  the  Koman 
Calendar,  he  offered  to  the  Genius  customary  and 
propitiatory  sacrifices  on  his  own  or  his  patrons'  birth- 
days. Hence,  as  well  as  for  the  collateral  lore  which 
pious  performance  of  such  cerenif)nics  would  accumu- 
late, one  special  phase  of  interest  in  his  poetry  is,  po 
to  speak,  antiquarian ;  and  modern  readers  may  look 
to  him  not  in  vain  for  light  upon  at  lea.^t  the  rustic 


122  TIBULLU8. 

festivals  of  Italy,  some  of  which  find  a  curious  parallel 
in  old  English  customs  growing  daily  more  nearly  obso- 
lete. One  very  remarkable  example  is  the  Festival  of 
the  Ambarvalia,  to  which  Tibullus  devotes  the  first  elegy 
of  his  second  book,  in  a  description  which  is,  along 
with  a  well-known  passage  of  the  First  Georgic  of  Vir- 
gil, a  chief  locus  classicus  touching  this  rural  celebra- 
tion. That  which  the  poet  describes  must  be  regarded 
as  the  private  festival  held  towards  the  end  of  April 
by  the  head  of  every  family,  and  not  the  public  and 
national  feast  performed  by  the  Fratres  Arvales  in 
May.  This  festival,  held  in  honour  not  of  Ceres  only, 
as  it  might  seem  from  Virgil,  but  of  Mars  also,  as  we 
gather  from  Cato's  treatise  on  Kustic  matters,  and,  as  we 
learn  from  Catullus,  of  Bacchus  and  the  gods  of  the 
family,  and  even  Cupid,  took  its  name  from  the  chief 
feature — of  the  victim  offered  on  the  occasion  being 
thrice  solemnly  led  round  the  fields  before  the  first 
sheaf  of  corn  was  reaped,  or  the  first  bunch  of  grapes 
cut.  In  its  train  followed  the  reapers,  vine-pruners, 
farm-servants,  dancing  and  singing  praise  to  Ceres  or 
Bacchus,  and  making  libations  of  honey,  wine,  and 
milk.  The  object  was  the  purification  and  hallowing 
of  themselves,  their  herds,  their  fields  and  fruits,  by 
the  rural  population  of  Latium ;  and  it  was  supposed 
to  keep  plague  and  pestilence  from  the  border  which 
the  procession  perambulated.  As  to  the  victim,  an 
earlier  admission  of  Tibullus  in  the  course  of  his 
poems  lets  us  into  the  fact  that  with  him,  owing  to 
his  circumstances,  it  was  only  a  lamb,  whereas  richer 
worshippers  offered  either  a  calf  or  sometimes  a  lamb, 


SIS  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  CAPACITY.      123 

calf,  and  sow  (suovetaurilia)  together ;  but  in  all  cases 
the  festival  wound  up  with  a  carousal  and  jollification 
for  all  concerned,  and  furnished  to  the  rural  popula- 
tion a  picturesque  and  looked-for  anniversary.  Those 
who  are  curious  in  finding  parallels  and  origins  for 
their  own  country's  old  customs  will  trace  to  the 
Ambarvalia  the  "Gang-days"  or  walkings  of  the 
parish  bounds  in  religious  procession,  which  still 
liriger  in  old  English  parishes  and  boroughs,  and 
which  at  the  Reformation  were  substituted  for  a 
festival  celebrated  in  the  Latin  Church  during  three 
days  at  Whitsuntide.  In  this,  one  main  object  seems 
to  have  been  to  solicit  God's  blessing  on  the  land  and 
its  crops ;  and  intimately  connected  with  the  cere- 
monial which  led  to  Rogation  Days  being  called 
Gang-days,  was  a  customary  procession.  Feasting, 
also,  and  revelry,  were  not  forgotten ;  though  in  the 
present  day  the  sole  surviving  feature  is,  here  and 
there,  perambulation  of  the  boundaries — a  relic,  doubt- 
less, of  the  very  lustration  of  which  Tibullus  gives 
the  prettiest  picture  extant.  According  to  him,  the 
whole  face  of  nature  was  to  keep  holiday,  whether 
animate  or  inanimate,  in  honour  of  Bacchus,  Ceres, 
and  their  associate  deities.  Even  women  were  to  lay 
by  their  spindles,  and  with  ablutions,  purifications,  and 
fc'hite  raiment,  place  themselves  in  accord  with  so  pure 
a  festival : — 

"  This  festal  day  let  soil  and  tiller  rest ! 

Hang  up  the  share,  and  give  all  ploughing  o'er  ; 
Unstrap  the  yokes.     Each  ox,  with  chaplets  drest, 
Should  feed  at  large  a  wcU-fiUcd  stall  before. 


124  TIBULLUS. 

See  the  doomed  lamb  to  l)lazing  altars  led, 

White  crowds  behind  with  olive  fillets  bound  ; 

That  evil  from  our  borders  may  be  sped, 
Thus,  gods  of  home,  we  lustrate  hind  and  ground. 

That  ye  may  fend  from  all  mischanca  the  swain, 
And  from  our  acres  banish  blight  and  bale, 

Lest  hollow  ears  should  mock  our  hope  of  grain, 
Or  'gainst  weak  lambs  the  fleeter  wolf  prevail. 

Bold  in  his  thriving  tiltli  the  farmer  then 
Logs  on  a  blazing  hearth  shall  cheerly  pile  ; 

And  slaves,  by  whom  their  master's  ease  we  ken, 
Frolic,  and  wattle  bowers  of  twigs  the  while." 
— (C.  ii.  1.  5-24.)  D. 

From  the  immediate  context  we  gather  that,  if  the 
auspices  were  favourable  on  the  showing  of  this  rural 
sacrifice,  it  was  a  signal  for  general  relaxation  and 
merry-making.  TibuUus  would  call  for  Falernian  of 
a  prime  old  brand,  and  broach,  a  cask  of  Chian  to 
boot.  The  revelry  which  in  his  view  of  things  would 
appropriately  follow,  reminds  one  of  the  orgies  in 
which,  according  to  the  song,  "  no  man  rose  to  go  till 
he  was  sure  he  could  not  stand."  Constant  toasting 
of  absent  friends  and  patrons  induced  a  moistness  and 
a  reeling  gait,  which  on  this  occasion  was  not  a  re- 
proach or  shame,  but  quite  the  contrary.  It  was,  says 
Tibullus,  a  usage  of  primeval  precedent  in  the  golden 
age  of  man's  innocency,  when  first  the  rural  gods  bore 
a  hand  in  instructing  him  to  harvest  his  fruits,  and 
Uacclius  assisted  in  oi-ganising  the  choral  song  and 
dance  which  celebrated  sxxch  harvests.  Even  Cupid, 
who   was  country-born  and  country-bred,  should  bo 


HIS  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  CAPACITY.      125 

bidden,  he  adds,  to  this  rural  ceremonial,  for  it  makes 
all  the  diflFerence  whetlier  the  flock  and  its  master 
experience  the  smile  or  frown  of  the  much -praised 
god:— 

"  Great  Cupid,  too,  'tis  said,  -was  bom  and  nurst 

'Mongst  sheep  and  cattle  and  unbroken  mares  ; 
rhere  with  unskilful  bow  he  practised  first, — 

Now  what  a  skilful  hand  the  weapon  bears. 
Not  cattle  now,  as  heretofore,  his  prey, 

But  blooming  maids  and  men  of  stalwart  frame  ; 
He  robs  the  youth  and  makes  the  greybeard  say. 

At  scornful  maiden's  threshold,  words  of  shame." 

But,  if  he  comes,  he  is  to  leave  aside  his  bow,  and 
hide  his  torches.  The  date  of  this  elegy  is  probably 
the  year  b.c.  23. 

In  the  fifth  elegy  of  the  second  book,  to  which 
allusion  has  been  already  made  as  that  in  which 
Messala's  eldest  son,  Messalinus,  is  complimented  on 
his  election  into  the  College  of  Fifteen,  one  pic- 
ture or  episode  of  rural  life  describes  the  festival 
of  the  Palilia.  This  was  a  very  ancient  Italian  holi- 
day, partaking  even  more  than  the  Ambarvalia  of  the 
character  of  a  lustration,  inasmuch  as  in  it  firo  and 
water  were  used  to  purify  shepherds  and  sheep,  hinds, 
herds,  and  farm-buildings.  This  festival  fell  on  the 
traditionary  birthday  of  the  city  of  Roi  le,  and  was 
kept  in  honour  of  Pales,  the  tutelary  goddess  of 
shepherds,  such  as  were  Rome's  founders.  To  ht!r 
were  ofiered  prayers,  and  sacrifices  of  cakes,  millet, 
milk,  and  various  eatables, — one  solemn  preliniinarv, 
according  to  Ovid,  being  the  composition  of  the  smoke 


126  TIBULLUS. 

with  which  stalls,  sheep,  and  shepherds  were  purified 
In  the  evening,  after  the  lustration,  bonfires  wert. 
lighted,  through  the  smoke  of  which  the  flocks  were 
driven  with  their  shepherds  thrice ;  a  second  purifica- 
tion, to  which  succeeded  an  open-air  feasting  on  turf 
benches.  To  this  festival,  which  is  fully  described  by 
Ovid  in  his  *  Fasti '  (iv.  731,  &c.),  allusion  is  made  also 
in  the  Elegies  of  Propertius  (v.  iv.  75.  Paley).  The 
picture  as  given  by  Tibullus  may  be  here  represented, 
with  a  note  or  two,  from  the  version  of  Mr  Cran- 
stoun : — 

"  On  Pales'  festival,  the  shepherd,  gay 
With  wine,  shall  sing  :  then  wolves  be  far  away. 
Wine-maddened,  he  will  fire  the  stubble-heap, 
And  through  the  sacred  Jlavus  with  ardour  leap. 
His  wife  will  bring  her  boy  his  heart  to  cheer, 
To  snatch  a  Jciss,  and  pull  his  father's  ear. 
Nor  will  the  grandsire  grudge  to  tend  the  boy, 
But  prattle  with  the  child  in  doting  joy. 
The  worship  o'er,  the  youths  upon  the  glade 
Will  lie  beneath  some  old  tree^s  glancing  shade  ; 
Or  with  their  garments  screen  their  rustic  bowers, 
Fill  full  the  bowl,  and  crown  the  wine  with  flowers ; 
Each  bring  his  feast,  and  pile  green  turf  on  high, 
Turf  that  shall  festive  board  and  couch  supplj'. 
Where  drunk,  the  youth  his  sweetheart  will  upbraid. 
And  shortly  after  Avish  his  words  unsaid. 
Though  bearish  now,  he'll  sober  down  to-morrow, 
Swear  he  was  mad,  and  shed  the  tear  of  sorrow." 

— (C,  p.  62,  63.) 

The  italicised  epithets  have  been  inserted  as  more 
literal,  and  the  italicised  lines  as  needing  illustration. 


BIS  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  CAPACITY.      127 

Tlie  custom  of  leaping  through,  the  fire,  under  the 
notion  of  being  purified  by  the  smoke,  is  alluded  to 
by  Propertius  likewise ;  and  is  said  by  Mr  Keightley 
to  be  still  kept  up  in  parts  of  Ireland  and  Scotland. 
The  seemingly  disrespectful  liberty  taken  by  the  child 
with  his  father's  cars,  is  explained  by  the  peculiar 
and  playful  kiss,  given  by  a  person  to  another  whose 
ears  he  held  by  way  of  handles,  which  Greeks  and 
Eomans  occasionally  practised,  and  which  was  called 
by  the  latter  chuira.  As  to  the  old  tree  at  the 
village  centre,  the  cross-roads,  or  district  boundary,  it 
belongs  to  all  time,  and  was  the  natural  trysting-place 
for  the  festival  of  Pales,  as  many  an  ancient  oak  or 
elm  discharges  a  like  office,  or  designates  a  like  tryst, 
in  our  English  counties. 

The  scrupulousness  with  which  Tibullus  kept  these 
rural  festivals,  observed  his  dues  to  Ceres,  Silvanus, 
and  the  Lares,  and  set  up  a  Priapus  in  his  orchard, 
accommodated  against  stress  of  weather  by  a  shady 
grot,  might  o\  might  not  be  taken  as  an  argument  that 
two  elegies  in  the  third  and  fourth  books,  alluding  to 
the  Matronalia,  were  from  his  muse,  and  not  another's. 
One  so  wrapt  up  in  the  country  may  have  done  all, 
when  he  had  discharged  his  duties  to  the  deities  pre- 
siding over  it ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  one  who  made 
so  much  of  birthdays  and  anniversaries,  might  have 
made  a  point  of  including  among  his  special  feasts  the 
first  day  of  the  first  month  (March)  of  the  sacerdotal 
year,  the  festival  Matronalia  in  honour  of  Juno,  the 
goddess  of  married  women,  a  season  when  not  only 
husbands  but  lovers  were  wont  to  present  their  loves 


128  TIBULLUS. 

with  gifts,  designated  strence,  the  etrennes  of  New 
Year's  Day  in  Paris.  The  first  elegy  of  the  third  book 
draws  a  lively  picture  of  the  stir  and  bustle  of  a  day 
not  unlike  St  Valentine's  morning  in  its  latest  develop- 
ment ;  and  the  second  in  the  fourth  book,  an  elegant 
and  erotic  performance,  commends  Sulpicia's  beauty 
as  she  appears  dressed  for  this  festival.  Neither, 
however,  has  the  detail  and  the  descriptiveness  of 
Tibullus's  pictures  of  the  rural  feasts.  Both  may  well 
have  emanated  from  one  of  Messala's  set  oi proteges; 
but  any  one  imbued  with  the  tone  and  spirit  of  his 
genuine  elegies  will  hesitate  to  admit  these  into  that 
category.  But  this  same  scrupulousness  and  exact- 
ness to  which  we  have  referred,  besides  attesting  the 
religious  spirit,  according  to  the  light  that  was  in  him, 
of  Albius  Tibullus,  extended  itself  to  his  civil  status 
and  conduct,  in  relation  to  the  powers  that  then  were. 
'Not  improbably  he  was  at  heart  an  old-fashioned 
waif  and  stray  of  the  republic,  for  whom  it  was 
enough  to  be  admitted  to  the  literary  f ircle  of  that 
virtuous  representative  of  the  old  Eoman  nobles,  Mes- 
sala ;  and  who,  while  acquiescing  in  the  imperial  rule 
from  inability,  and  probably  disinclination,  to  take  a 
prominent  or  active  part  in  politics  or  social  matters, 
made  a  point  of  maintaining  his  independence,  by 
keeping  aloof  from  the  cohort  of  the  bards  of  the 
empire.  Though  Ovid  can  elegise  his  tuneful  pre- 
decessor in  strains  which  were  no  more  than  justly 
due  to  one  to  whom  his  own  poetry  owed  not  a 
little,  and  imagine  him  in  death  associated  with 
Catullus,    Calvus,    Gallus,   and   other   poets,   we  do 


BIS  CIVIL  AND  RELIGIOUS  CAPACITY.      129 

not  find  Tib  villus  cultivating  or  even  naming  Au- 
gustus or  his  ministers,  or  the  members  of  his  literary 
coteries.  How  much  or  littje  Horace  knew  of  him 
depends  upon  the  genial  Venusian's  evidence  in  a 
single  ode  and  a  single  epistle ;  and  that  evidence  docs 
not  go  for  much.  There  is  nothing  to  prove  that 
his  goodwUl  was  warmly  reciprocated ;  whilst  Ovid, 
who  was  much  junior  to  TibuUus,  did  not  enjoy  his 
personal  friendship.  There  is,  at  all  events,  consider- 
able negative  evidence  that  our  poet  valued  and  cher- 
ished his  independence ;  and  good  ground  for  believ- 
ing that  he  maintained  it.  Whether  there  is  enough 
to  justify  Dean  Merivale's  theory,  "  That  he  pined 
away  in  unavailing  despondency  in  beholding  the  sub- 
jugation of  his  country,"  it  would  be  hard  to  pro- 
nounce, in  the  face  of  his  slightly  unpatriotic  and 
un-Koman  deprecation  of  military  service,  his  fondness 
for  ease  and  rustication,  and  his  undeniable  life  of  some- 
what Anacreontic  self- pleasing;  but  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  ample  gi-ound  for  the  idea,  broached 
and  shadowed  forth  by  the  same  eminent  historian, 
that  Tibullus  "  alone  of  the  great  poets  of  his  day 
remained  undazzled  by  the  glitter  of  the  Cajsarian 
usurpation."  *  Akin  to  this  independence  of  principle 
is  Tibullus's  exceptional  independence  in  literary 
style  :  whilst  all  his  contemporaries  were  addicting 
themselves  to  Greek  mythology  and  Alexandrine 
models,  he  stood  alone  in  choice  of  themes  and  scenes 
best  suited  to  his  purely  Italian  genius.     His  terse, 

•  History  of  Rome  under  the  Empire,  iv.  602. 
A.C.8.S.,  vol.  iii.  I 


130  TIBULLUS. 

clear,  simple  language,  as  well  as  thought,  distinguish 
him  equally  from  the  learning  and  imagination  of 
CatuUus,  and  the  artifici^  phraseology  and  constantly- 
involved  constructions  of  Propertius.  He  deserves  tlie 
meed  of  natural  grace  and  unrestrained  simplicity,  and 
ranks  amongst  his  elegiac  contemporaries  as  j?;ar  excel- 
lence the  poet  of  nature.  In  some  respects  his  genius 
might  compare  with  that  of  Burns,  though  in  others 
the  likeness  fails;  and  perhaps  it  is  owing  to  his 
limited  range  of  subjects  that  he  has  not  been  more 
translated  into  English.  Dart's  translation,  as  well 
as  that  of  Grainger,  is  almost  forgotten ;  the  partial 
translations  of  Major  Packe  and  Mr  Hopkins  quite  so. 
A  few  neat  versions  of  Tibullus  which  occur  in  '  Speci- 
mens of  the  Classic  Poets,'  are  due  to  Charles  Abraham 
Elton,  the  scholarly  translator  of  Hesiod;  but  it  is 
to  Mr  James  Cranstoun  that  the  English  reader  who 
wishes  to  know  more  of  this  poet  than  can  be  learned 
in  a  comparatively  brief  memoir  and  estimate,  must 
incur  a  debt  such  as  we  have  incurred  in  the  fore- 
going pages. 


PROPERTIUS. 


CHAPTER  L 


LIFE  OP   PROPERTIUS. 


Of  the  youngest  member  of  the  elegiac  trio  it  is  not 
liard  to  approximate  the  birtli-date  and  establish  the 
birthplace.  With  reference  to  his  full  designation  it 
will  suffice  to  say  that  the  name  of  Sextus  rests  on 
fair  authority,  whilst  there  is  nothing  but  a  copyist's 
blunder  and  confusion  of  our  poet  with  Prudentius 
to  account  for  the  second  name  of  "  Aurelius  "  some- 
times erroneously  given  to  him.  As  to  the  date  of 
our  poet's  birth,  Ovid  tells  us  in  his  "Tristia"* 
that  he  was  younger  than  Tibullus,  but  older  than 
himself,  so  that  whereas  with  Tibullus  he  had  little 
time  for  intimacy,  with  Propertius  he  enjoyed  a  tol- 
erably close"  literary  acquaintance.  This  would  ena- 
ble us  to  place  his  birth  somewhere  betwixt  n.c.  54 
and  44,  and  there  is  a  probability  that  it  was  about 

♦  IV.  X.  61-64. 


132  PROPERTIUS. 

B.C.  49.  Like  his  predecessors  in  Roman  elegy,  he 
was  country  born  and  bred :  nursed  in  the  Umbriau 
town  of  Asisium  in  Upper  Italy,  amidst  the  pastures 
of  Mevania,  near  the  source  of  the  Clitumnus,  imless 
in  preference  to  his  own  evidence  we  choose  to  credit 
the  comparatively  modern  story  which  connects  the 
poet  and  his  villa  with  "  Spello,"  the  modern  repre- 
sentative of  the  ancient  town  of  Hispellum  in  the 
same  neighbourhood.  Propertius,  indeed,  is  tolerably 
circumstantial  on  the  subject  where  in  his  fifth  book  * 
he  makes  the  old  Babylonish  seer,  who  dissuades  him 
from  attempting  archaeological  poems  about  "early 
Eome  "  and  the  like,  evince  a  knowledge  of  his  ante- 
cedents by  telling  him — 

"  Old  Umbria  gave  thee  birth — a  spot  renowned — 
Say,  am  I  right?  is  that  thy  native  ground  ? — 
Where,  dewy-moist,  lie  low  Mevania's  plains. 
Where  steams  the  Umbrian  lake  with  summer  rains, 
Where  towers  the  wall  o'er  steep  Asisium's  hill, 
A  wall  thy  genius  shall  make  nobler  still." 

This  account,  it  should  be  observed,  is  consistent  with 
the  poet's  direct  answer  to  the  queries  of  his  friend 
Tullus  concerning  his  native  place  at  the  end  of  the 
first  book,  that — 

"Umbria,  whose  hill-border  crowns 
The  adjacent  underlying  downs, 
Gave  birth  to  me — a  land  renowned 
For  rich  and  finely-watered  groimd." 

The  steaming  waters,  which  are  called  the  Umbrian 
*  EL  i.  ad  fin. 


LIFE  OF  PROPERTIUS.  133 

lake  in  the  first  passage,  are  doubtless  the  same  which 
are  credited  with  fertilising  power  in  the  second : 
tlio  same  sloping  river  (as  the  derivation  imports)  of 
Clitumnus,  which  a  scholiast  upon  the  woi-d  in  the 
second  book  of  Virgil's  'Georgics'  declares  to  have 
been  a  lake  as  well  as  a  river.  The  locale  is  of  some 
importance,  seeing  that  it  enhances  our  interest  if 
we  can  trace  the  lifelike  scenes  of  Propertius's  more 
natural  muse  to  his  recollections  of  the  Umbrian 
home,  from  which  he  had  watched  the  white  herds 
of  Clitumnus  wind  slowly  stall-ward  at  eve,  had  heard 
the  murmurs  of  the  Apennine  forests,  and  gazed  with 
delight  on  the  shining  streams  and  pastures  of  moist 
Mevania.  Scarcely  less  so,  if  we  can  account  for  the 
exceptionally  rugged  earnestness  of  his  muse  by  the 
reference  to  his  Umbrian  blood,  and  the  grave  and 
masculine  temperament  peculiar  to  the  old  Italian 
races.  In  parentage,  Propertius  was  of  the  middle 
class,  the  son  of  a  knight  or  esquire  who  had  joined 
the  party  of  Lucius  Antonius,  and  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent  shared  the  fate  of  the  garrison  of  Perusium, 
when  captured  by  Octavius.  A  credible  historian 
limits  the  massacre  there  to  senators  of  the  town  and 
special  enemies ;  but  the  elder  Propertius,  if  he  came 
off  with  his  life,  was  certainly  mulcted  in  his  property; 
for  whilst  there  are  some  expressions  of  the  poet  to 
show  that  his  sire's  death  was  peaceful,  though  prem- 
ature, it  is  certain  that  a  large  slice  of  his  patrimony 
had  to  go  as  a  sop  and  propitiation  to  the  veterans  of 
Augustus.  The  poet's  reminiscences  of  his  early  homo 
must    like  those  of  TibuUus,  have  been  associated 


134  PROPERTIUS. 

with  the  hardships  of  proscription  and  confiscation ; 
with  early  orphanage  and  forfeited  lands ;  with  such 
shrunken  rents  and  decimated  acreage,  as  made  a 
young  man  all  the  keener  to  bring  his  wits  into  the 
market,  and  perchance  to  develop  talents  which  would 
have  "  died  uncomniended,"  had  the  stimulus  of  stern 
necessity  not  existed.  In  the  same  elegy  *  already 
alluded  to,  allusion  is  made  to  the  sweeping  en- 
croachments of  the  ruthless  "  government  measuring- 
rod,"  which  made  him  fain,  when  he  assumed  the 
manly  toga,  and  laid  aside  the  golden  amulet  worn  by 
the  children  of  the  freeborn  or  "  ingenui,"  to  relieve 
his  widowed  mother  of  the  burden  which  his  father's 
premature  death  had  devolved  on  her,  and  to  repair 
to  Rome  with  a  view  to  completing  his  training  for 
the  bar.  That  he  was  obliged  to  content  himself  with 
an  ordinary  preparation,  and  to  forego  the  higher 
Attic  polish,  is  clear  from  an  admission  to  his  friend 
Tullust  that  he  has  yet  at  a  much  later  period  to 
see  Athens ;  but  further,  we  may  guess  that  his 
keeping  terms  at  the  bar  soon  became  only  his  osten- 
sible occupation  in  life,  and  that  like  young  Horace 
the  treasury  clerk,  and  Virgil  the  suitor,  and  Tibullus 
the  claimant,  the  channel  which  led  to  real  fame  and 
competence  was — poetry. 

"  Then  Phoebus  charmed  thy  poet-soul  afar 
From  the  fierce  thunderings  of  the  noisy  bar." 

Of  how  many  modem  divines,  and  essayists,  and  lit- 
*  V.  i.  129-134.  1 1,  vi.  13. 


LIFE  OF  PROPERTIUS.  135 

terateurs  has  not  the  original  destination  been  similar, 
and  similarly  diverted  !  It  was  essential,  doubtless,  to 
Propertius's  success  in  this  divergent  occupation  and 
livelihood  that  he  should  find  a  patron,  to  become  to  him 
what  Maecenas  was  to  Horace,  and  Messala  to  Tibullus. 
Later  on,  he  got  introduced  to  the  great  commoner, 
prime  minister,  and  patron,  whose  inner  circle  on  the 
Esquiline  assured  distinction  in  letters  to  all  its  mem- 
bers :  but  his  first  patron  was  Volcatius  Tullus,  the 
nephew  of  L.  Volcatius  Tullus,  consul  in  b.c.  33  and 
proconsul  in  Asia,  who  was  of  the  poet's  own  age,  and 
probably  his  uncle's  lieutenant.  To  this  Tullus  are 
addressed  several  of  the  elegies  of  the  fii*st  book,  and 
it  is  reasonable  to  think  that  the  link  between  patron 
and  client  was  one  of  equal  friendshiii.  A  little  of 
the  proper  pride  of  tlie  Umbrian  rhymer  comes  out  in 
what  he  writes  to  MjBcenas,  at  a  subsequent  period, 
deprecating  public  station  and  prominence,  and  deli- 
cately suggesting  tliat  in  eschewing  these  and  loftier 
themes  he  does  but  imitate  the  retiring  modesty  of 
his  patron. 

Before,  however,  we  discuss  his  relations  with  patrons 
and  contemporary  poets,  it  were  well  to  glance  at  the 
sources  and  subjects  of  his  trained  and  erudite  muse. 
If  ever  epithet  was  fitted  to  a  proper  name,  it  is  the 
epithet  of  "  doctus  "  or  *'  learned  "  in  connection  with 
that  of  Propertius.  More  than  Catullus,  infinitely  more 
than  Tibullus,  Propertius  was  imbued  witli  and  batlied 
in  the  Alexandrian  pcetry  and  poets.  Again  and  again 
he  calls  himself  the  disciple  of  the  Coan  Philetaa, 
and  his   ambition  was  to  be.  what  Ovid  designates 


136  PROPERTIUS. 

him,  the  "  Eoman  Callimachus."  That  this  ambition 
was  detrimental  at  times  to  his  originality  and  true 
genius,  there  is  abundant  proof  in  the  perusal  of  his 
elegies.  His  too  much  learning,  his  stores  of  Alex- 
andrian archaeology,  overflow  upon  his  love-elegies  in 
such  wise  as  to  impress  the  reader  with  the  unreality 
of  the  erudite  wooer's  compliments,  and  to  make  him 
cease  to  wonder  that  Cynthia  jilted  him  for  a  vulgar 
and  loutish  praitor.  And  this  was  not  confined  to  his 
love-poems.  Where  he  deals  with  Roman  and  Italian 
legends,  he  is  apt  to  overcumber  them  with  parallels 
from  foreign  mythland  :  and  it  may  be  said  without 
controversy  that  where  he  fails  in  perspicuity,  and 
induces  the  most  irrepressible  tedium,  is  in  his  un- 
measured doses  of  Greek  mythology. 

It  is  the  general  opinion  of  scholars  that  the  essen- 
tially Roman  poems  of  Propertius  were  his  first  at- 
tempts in  poetry,  and  that  he  took  the  lost  "Dreams," 
as  he  styles  that  poet's  epic,  of  Callimachus  for  his 
model  of  their  style.  If  so,  it  is  no  less  probable  that 
the  self -same  themes  occupied  his  latest  muse,  the 
mean  space  being  given  up  to  his  erotic,  and,  par  ex- 
cellence, his  Cynthian  elegies.  From  his  own  showing, 
the  brilliant  and  fascinating  mistress  who  bewitched 
him,  as  Lesbia  and  Delia  (we  call  all  three  by  their 
poets'  noms  de  plume)  had  bewitched  Catullus  and 
Tibullus,  was  the  fount  and  source,  the  be-all  and 
end-all,  of  his  poetic  dreams  and  aspirations.  Never- 
theless, it  may  be  doubted  whether  Propertius  did 
not  give,  in  some  of  his  poems  on  early  Rome, 
earnests  of  a  more  erudite,- if   a  less  attractive,  bal- 


LIFE  OF  PROPERTIUS.  137 

ladic  gift,  than  tlie  more  facile  Ovid,  whose  'Fasti' 
have  cast  into  shade  his  predecessor's  experiments  in 
turning  the  lloman  Calendar  into  poetry.  Reserving 
the  story  of  his  loves  for  another  chapter,  it  will  bo 
advisable  that  in  the  present  we  should  confine  our- 
selves to  the  record  of  his  life  and  career,  indepen- 
dently of  that  absorbing  influence.  It  was  no  doubt 
a  turning-point  for  him,  when  Propertius  gained  in- 
troduction and  acceptance  into  the  literary  coterie  of 
Maecenas.  Although  his  difference  in  age,  and  his 
probably  less  courtly  manners  and  temper,  interfered 
with  his  admission  to  the  same  close  intimacy  as  the 
lively  Venusian  in  the  minister's  villa  and  gardens 
on  the  Esquiline,  there  is  abundant  internal  evidence 
that  he  was  welcomed  there  not  only  for  his  merit  as 
a  poet,  but  also  for  the  special  purpose  of  all  the  in- 
troductions to  that  brilliant  circle — namely,  to  nurse 
and  raise  up  a  meet  band  of  celebrants  of  the  vic- 
tories and  successes  of  Augustus.  In  an  elegy  *  which 
evinces  the  depth  and  breadth  of  his  archaeological  and 
mythologic  lore,  the  poet  is  found  excusing  his  in- 
ability to  write  epics  or  heroics,  though  he  adds  that, 
could  he  essay  such  themes,  it  should  be  to  commem- 
orate the  deeds  of  the  victor  at  Actium,  the  triumphs 
in  which  golden -fettered  kings  were  led  along  the 
Via  Sacra,  and  the  praise  of  his  stanch  friend  and 
servant — 

**  In  time  of  peace,  in  time  of  war,  a  faithful  subject 
aye." 

•  II.  i. 


138  PROPERTIUS. 

In  the  same  spirit  is  breathed  the  address  to  the  same 
patron  in  the  ninth  elegy  of  the  fourth  book,  where, 
deprecating  heroic  poetry,  Propertius  gracefully  pro- 
fesses his  readiness  to  rise  to  the  height  of  that  high 
argument,  if  Maecenas  will  set  him  an  example  of 
conquering  his  own  innate  dislike  to  prominence,  and 
assume  his  proper  rank  and  position.  If  it  is  true  of 
the  patron  that — 

"  Though  Caesar  ever  gives  the  ready  aid, 

And  wealth  profusely  proffered  never  fails — 
Thou  shrink'st,  and  humbly  seek'st  the  gentle  shade, 
And  with  thine  own  hand  reef  st  thy  bellying  sails" — 

the  poet-client  insinuates  that  it  ought  to  be  lenough 
for  himseK — 

"  Enough,  with  sweet  Callimachus  to  please, 
And  lays  like  thine,  O  Coan  poet,  weave  : 
To  thrill  the  youth  and  fire  the  fair  with  these, 
Be  hailed  divine,  and  homage  meet  receive." 

Indeed,  if  ever  his  instinctive  conviction  of  his  proper 
metier  is  shaken  by  the  importunities  of  those  who 
would  have  won  him  over  to  the  laureateship  of  the 
imperial  eagles,  he  speedily  and  wisely  recurs  to  liis 
first  and  better  judgment.  It  may  be  he  had  discovered 
that  to  cope  with  such  a  task  he  needed  greater  plasti- 
city of  character  than  accorded  with  his  Umbrian.  origin 
— that  he  would  have  to  smooth  over  defects,  and,  mag- 
nify partial  successes.  Even  where  in  the  first  elegy 
of  the  third  book  he  seems  to  be  qualifying  for  the 
office,  and  preluding  his  task  by  graceful  compliments 
to'^ugustus,  not  only  do  the  spectres  of  the  slaughtered 


LIFE  OF  PROPER! lUS.  139 

Crassi  eome  unbidden  across  the  field  of  compliment 
opened  by  the  emperor's  successes  in  the  East,  but 
chronology  satisfies  the  reader  that  poetic  flourishes 
about  vanquished  India,  and  about  "  Arabia's  homes, 
untouched  before,  reeling  in  grievous  terror,"  could 
not  rearrange  or  unsettle  the  order  of  fate,  that  not 
very  long,  probably,  after  the  composition  of  this  elegy 
the  expedition  sent  against  Arabia  under  the  command 
of  iElius  Gallus  should  come  to  unlooked-for  defeat 
and  disaster.  Propertius's  sounder  mind  falls  ever 
back  upon  themes  that  involve  no  such  risk  of  mis- 
adventure from  flattery  or  false  prophecy ;  and  if  he 
plumes  himself  for  a  higher  flight,  it  is  in  the  strain 
of  undisguised  deprecation  of  his  daring — 

"  As  when  we  cannot  reach  the  head  of  statues  all  too 

high. 
We  lay  a  chaplet  at  the  feet,  so  now  perforce  do  I, 
Unfit  to  climb  the  giddy  heights  of  epic  song  divine, 
In  humble  adoration  lay  poor  incense  on  thy  shrine  : 
For  not  as  yet  my  Muse  hath  known  the  wells  of  Ascra'a 

grove  : 
Permessus'  gentle   wave  alone  hath  laved  the  limbs  of 

Love.  .  — (III.  i.  ad  fin.) 

It  is  hard  to  conceive  with  what  justice,  when  such 
was  the  poet's  deprecation  of  the  court  laureate's  task 
(to  say  notning  of  other  inconsistencies  in  the  theory), 
it  can  have  o(K?urred  to  some  critics  and  speculators  to 
identify  Propertius  with  the  "  bore "  who  pestered 
Horace  through  the  streefe  and  ways,  as  ho  describes 
in  his  satire.*     The  weight  of  Dean  Merivale's  name 

*  Hor.,  Sat.  I.  ix.  pataim. 


140  PROPERTIUS. 

and  knowledge  may,  it  is  true,  impart  strength  to 
this  conjecture  ;  but  assuredly  a  fair  comparison  of 
all  the  data  we  can  collect  from  external  and  iii- 
ternal  sources  towards  the  life  of  Propertius  does 
not  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  he  was  one 
to  intrude  himself  on  the  great  or  the  success- 
ful, or  that  lack  of  opportunities  of  introduction  to 
the  court  of  Augustus,  or  the  villa  and  gardens  of 
Maecenas,  drove  him  to  annoyance  and  importunity 
of  such  as  had  the  entree  to  either.  It  has  always 
seemed  to  us  a  strong  note  of  difference,  that  Horace's 
babbling  fop  is  represented  as  addressing  his  victim 
in  short  cut-and-dried  interjective  remarks,  the  very 
opposite  of  the  high-sounding,  learned,  and  perhaps 
stilted  language  which  might  have  been  expected  of 
Propertius,  a  poet  who,  one  should  fancy,  spoke,  if  ho 
did  not  care  to  write,  heroics — even  as  Mrs  Siddons  is 
said  to  have  been,  and  talked,  the  queen,  even  off  the 
stage.  Considering  the  field  open  to  him,  and  the 
invitations  profusely  given  to  him,  this  poet  is  entitled 
to  the  credit  of  extreme  moderation  as  regards  the 
incense  heaped,  after  the  fashion  of  his  poetic  con- 
temporaries, upon  the  shrine  of  Augustus.  His  noted 
poem  on  the  "  Battle  of  Actium "  *  is  a  fine  and 
grand  treatment  of  a  theme  upon  which  to  have  been 
silent  would  have  been  as  much  an  admission  of  in- 
ability to  hold  his  own  as  a  poet,  as  a  proof  of  indif- 
ference or  disloyalty  to  the  victor  in  that  famous  fight; 
and  who  of  his  contemporaries  would  have  thought 
anything  of  the  pretensions  of  a  bard  who  did  not 
*  V.  vi.   ■ 


LIFE  OF  PROPERTIUS.  141 

embody  in  such  glowing  verse  as  he  could  compose 
the  engrossing  subject  of  the  discomfiture  and  subse- 
quent tragedy  of  Cleopatra?  There  is  little  heed  to 
be  paid  to  the  inference  from  the  name  of  Propertius 
not  being  mentioned  by  Tibullus  or  Horace,  that  either 
held  him  in  contempt,  the  former  because  he  resented 
his  claiming  to  be  the  Eoman  Callimachus.  As  Ave 
have  seen,  Tibullus  did  not  afiect  Alexandrine  erudi- 
tion ;  and  Propertius  is  entitled  to  his  boast  without 
controversy  on  Tibullus's  part,  though  he  might  have 
found  it  hard  to  maintain  it  seriously  in  the  face  of 
Catullus.  But  of  that  poet's  fame  his  elegies  make 
but  a  small  portion ;  and  we  are  to  remember  that  what 
Propertius  prides  himself  upon  was  the  introduction 
of  the  Greek  or  Alexandrine  elegy  into  Latin  song. 
If  neither  Tibullus  nor  Horace  names  him,  at  least 
Ovid  makes  the  amend  for  this  ;  and  the  fact  that  the 
poet  is  equally  silent  as  to  them,  need  not  be  pressed 
into  a  proof  of  insignificance,  or  churlishness,  or  lite- 
rary jealousy,  seeing  that  he  is  proven  to  have  known, 
appreciated,  and  mingled  familiarly  with  other  scarcely 
less  eminent  poets  of  the  period,  not  to  omit  his  gen- 
erous auguries  of  the  epic  poems  of  his  friend  Virgil. 
With  Ponticus,  a  writer  of  hexameters,  and  author  of 
a  lost  Thebaid,  ho  was  on  terms  of  pleasant  friendship, 
and  not  of  rivalry  in  poetry  or  in  love.  He  could 
pay  graceful  compliments  to  the  iambics  of  his  cor- 
respondent Bassus,  though  not  without  a  feigned  or 
real  suspicion  that  that  poet's  design  in  seeking  to 
widen  the  range  of  his  admiration  for  the  fair  sex  was 
an  interested  motive  of  stepping  into  Cynthia's  good 


142  PROPERTIUS. 

graces.  As  to  Virgil,  Propertius,  in  an  elegy  to  a 
tragic  poet  Lynceus  (who  probably  owes  the  preser- 
vation of  his  name  to  his  having  presumed  to  flirt 
with  Cynthia  at  a  banquet),  commends  that  great  poet 
as  being  more  fruitfully  and  worthily  occupied ;  and 
commemorates  his  poetic  achievements  in  strains  that 
have  not  the  faintest  leaven  of  jealousy  or  grudge  : — 

"  But  now  of  Phcebus-guarded  Actian  shore, 
And  Caesar's  valiant  fleets,  let  Virgil  sing. 

Who  rouses  Troy's  ^neas  to  the  fray. 

And  rears  in  song  Lavinium's  walls  on  high  : 

Yield,  Eoman  writers — bards  of  Greece,  give  way — 
A  work  will  soon  the  Iliad's  fame  outvie. 

Thou  sing'st  the  precepts  of  the  Ascrtean  sage, 
What  plain  grows  corn,  what  mountain  suits  the  vine— 

A  strain,  O  Virgil,  that  might  well  engage 
Apollo's  fingers  on  his  lyre  divine. 

Thou  sing'st  beneath  Galsesus'  pinewood  shades 
Thyrsis  and  Daphnis  on  thy  well-worn  reed  j 

And  how  ten  apples  can  seduce  the  maids. 

And  kid  from  unmilked  dam  girls  captive  lead. 

Happy  with  apples  love  so  cheap  to  buy  ! 

To  such  may  Tityrus  sing,  though  cold  and  coy : 
0  happy  Corydon  !  when  thou  mayst  try 

To  win  Alexis  fair — his  master's  joy. 

Though  of  his  oaten  pipe  he  weary  be, 
Kind  Hamadryads  still  their  bard  adore, 

Whose  strains  will  charm  the  reader's  ear,  be  he 
Unlearned  or  learned  in  love's  delightful  lore." 

— (C.  III.  xxvi.) 


LIFE  OF  PROPERTIUS.  143 

Our  quotation  is  from  Mr  Cranstoun's  well-considered 
version,  -which  in  this  instance  embodies  and  repre- 
sents the  rearrangement  of  the  original  elegy  by  Mr 
Munro.  It  gives  us  allusions  in  inverted  sequence 
to  the  *^neid,'  the  'Georgics,'  and  the  'Eclogues,' and 
contains  a  reference  to  the  neighbourhood  of  Taren- 
tum,  which  draws  from  the  editor  of  Lucretius  the 
remark  that  Virgil  may  have  taken  refuge  thereabouts 
in  the  days  when  he  and  his  father  lost  their  lands 
along  with  other  Mantuans.  "  "When  I  was  at  Taren- 
tum  some  months  ago,  it  struck  me  how  much  better 
the  scenery,  flora,  and  silva  of  these  parts  suited  many  of 
the  '  Eclogues  '  than  the  neighbourhood  of  Lfantua."  * 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  "  precepts  of  the  Ascr£ean 
Hesiod  "  refer  to  Virgil's  imitation  of  that  poet  in  his 
*  Georgics,'  whilst  the  names  of  Thyrsis,  Daphnis, 
Corydon,  and  Alexis  recall  the  *  Eclogues,'  and  Tity- 
rus  represents  Virgil  himself.  Galesus,  celebrated  also 
by  Horace  on  account  of  its  fine-fleeced  slieep,  was  a 
little  river  in  the  neighbourliood  of  Tarentum,  ap- 
parently the  locality  in  which  some  of  the  '  Eclogues ' 
were  written. 

Amongst  other  less  specially  literary  friends  of  Pro- 
pertius,  to  whom  his  elegies  introduce  us,  were  ^ius 
Gallus,  already  mentioned  as  the  leader  of  an  ill-starred 
expedition  to  Arabia ;  Posthumus,  who,  according  to 
our  poet  in  El.  IV.  xii.,  left  a  faithful  wife  for  another 
campaign  to  the  East,  and  M'liose  wife's  laments  are 
supposed  to  be  described  in  the  pleasing  tliird  elegy 
of  the  fifth  book,  that  of  Arethusa  to  Lycotas.  Of 
•  Journal  of  Philology,  vi.  i\. 


144  PROPERTIUS. 

Volcatius  Tullus  and  his  patronage  we  have  taken 
notice  above.  The  poet's  elegies  to  him*  affection- 
ately speed  his  parting  for  the  East,  and  in  due 
course  long  to  welcome  his  return  to  the  Rome  of 
his  friends  and  ancestors.  The  first  supplies,  inci- 
dentally, evidence  that  Propertius  had  not,  up  to  the 
date  of  it,  visited  Athens ;  and  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether — though  in  IV.  xxi.  he  seems  to  contemplate 
a  pilgrimage  thither  in  the  fond  hope  that  length  of 
voyage  may  make  him  forget  his  untoward  loves,  and 
though  in  I,  xv.  he  gives  a  graphic  picture  of  the 
dangers  and  terrors  of  a  storm  at  sea — he  ever  really 
left  his  native  shores,  or  indulged  in  foreign  travel. 
There  is  much  reason  to  agree  with  Mr  Cranstoun  that 
the  absence  of  direct  testimony  on  this  point  negatives 
the  supposition ;  and  his  periodical  threats  of  taking 
wing,  and  thrilling  pictures  of  perils  of  waters,  may 
perhaps  be  interpreted  as  only  hints  to  his  mistress 
to  behave  herself,  and  suggestions  of  desertion,  which 
she  probably  valued  at  a  cheap  rate  from  a  knowledge 
of  her  influence  and  attractions.  Though  full  of  the 
mythic  lore  of  Greece,  the  poetry  of  Propertius  betrays 
no  eyewitness  of  its  ancient  cities  or  learned  seats; 
and  it  is  a  more  probable  conclusion  that  he  was  a 
stay-at-home,  though  not  unimaginative,  traveller. 
His  continued  attachment  to  Cynthia — a  long  phase 
in  his  life-history  to  be  treated  separately — tends  to 
this  conclusion ;  and  we  know  so  little  of  him  after 
the  final  rupture  with  her,  that  silence  seems  to  con- 
firm the  unlocomotiveness  of  his  few  remaining  years. 
*  I.  vi.  and  IV.  xxii. 


LIFE  OF  PROPERTJUS.  145 

In  one  so  wedded  to  Greek  traditions,  a  treading  of 
classic  soil  must  have  reawakened  long-banished  song  ; 
but  Propertius  died  comparatively  young,  like  Catul- 
lus and  Tibullus,  and  he  probably  ceased  to  write  and 
to  live  about  the  age  of  thirty-four,  or  from  that  to 
forty.  Though  Pliny's  gossip  credits  him  with  lineal 
descendants — which  involves  a  legal  union  after  Cyn- 
thia's death — there  is  everything  in  his  extant  remains 
to  contradict  such  a  story.  He  doubtless  sang  his 
mistress  in  strains  of  exaggeration  for  which  one  makes 
due  allowance  in  gleaning  his  slender  history ;  but 
substantially  true  was  his  constant  averment  that 
Cyntliia  was  his  last  love,  even  as  she  was  his  first. 
It  is  irresistible  to  cling  to  the  belief  that  the  com- 
paratively brief  space  of  life  he  lived  without  her  and 
her  distracting  influences  was  the  period  of  his  finest 
Roman  poems,  and  of  the  philosophic  studies  to  M'hich 
his  Muse  in  earlier  strains  looked  forward.  He  is 
supposed  to  have  died  about  b.c.  15.  In  his  poetry 
he  contrasts  strongly  with  his  co-mates  Catullus  and 
Tibullus.  As  erotic  as  the  first,  he  is  more  refineil 
and  less  coarse  without  being  less  fervent.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  can  lay  no  claim  to  the  simplicity  and 
nature-painting  of  Tibullus,  though  he  introduces  into 
his  verse  a  pregnant  and  often  obscure  crowding  of 
forcible  thoughts,  expressions,  and  constructions,  which 
justify  the  epithet  that  attests  his  exceptional  learn- 
ing. In  strength  and  vigour  of  verse  he  stands  pre- 
eminent, unless  it  be  when  he  lets  this  learning  have 
its  head  too  unrestrainedly.  And  though  tlie  verdict 
of  critics  would  probably  bo  that  he  is  best  in  the  love 
A.C.S.8.,  vol.  iii.  K 


146  PROPERTIUS. 

elegies,  and  in  the  less  mythologic  portions  of  these, 
where  pathos,  fervour,  jealous  passion  supply  the 
changing  phases  of  his  constant  theme,  it  may  be 
doubted  if  some  of  the  more  historic  and  Roman 
elegies  of  the  fifth  book  do  not  supply  as  fine  and 
memorable  a  sample  of  his  Muse,  which  inherited 
from  its  native  mountains  what  Dean  Merivale  desig- 
nates "  a  strength  and  sometimes  a  grandeur  of  lan- 
guage which  would  have  been  highly  relished  in  the 
sterner  age  of  Lucretius."  His  life  and  morality  were 
apparently  on  the  same  level  as  those  of  his  own  gen- 
eration; but  if  a  free  liver,  he  has  the  refinement  to 
draw  a  veil  over  much  that  CatuUus  or  Ovid  would 
have  laid  bare.  And  though  his  own  attachment  was 
less  creditable  than  constant,  that  he  could  enter  into 
and  appreciate  the  beauty  of  wedded  love,  and  of  care- 
ful nurture  on  the  elder  Roman  pattern,  will  be  patent 
to  those  who  read  the  lay  of  Arethusa  to  Lycotas,  or 
peruse  the  touching  elegy,  which  crowns  the  fifth 
and  last  of  his  books,  of  the  dead  Cornelia  to  .^imilius 
Faullua. 


CHAPTEE  II. 

Cynthia's   pokt. 

As  with  Catullus  and  Tibullus,  there  would  be  scant 
remains  of  the  poetry  of  Propertius — scant  materials 
for  a  biography  of  him — if  his  loves  and  the  story  of 
them  were  swept  out  of  the  midst.  With  the  poets  of 
his  school  Love  was  the  prime  motive  of  song;  and  he 
was  truly  a  sedulous  example  of  his  own  profession  : — 

"  Many  have  lived  and  loved  their  life  away  : 
Oh,  may  I  live  and  love,  then  eye  ^  they  ! 
Too  weak  for  fame,  too  slight  for  war's  stem  rule, 
Fate  bade  me  learn  in  only  Love's  soft  school." 

—(I.  vi.  27.)  M. 

Yet  it  must  be  confessed  that,  however  forcible  and 
fervid  the  verse  in  which  he  commemorates  this  love, 
the  results  fail  to  impress  us  with  the  same  reality  and 
earnestness  as  his  predecessors,  partly  perhaps  because 
"  he  makes  love  by  book,"  an<l  ransacks  the  Greek 
poets  and  mythologists  for  meet  comparisons  with  his 
mistress ;  and  partly  because  occasionally  his  verses 
betray  the  fickleness  of  a  man  of  pleasure  and  gal- 
lantry, whose  expressions  and  protestations  are  to  be 
taken  only  at  their  worth.      Famous  as  the  elegies 


148  PROPERTIUS. 

to  Cyntkia  have  become  in  after-time,  and  customary 
as  it  is  to  regard  Propertius  as  the  sympathetic  friend 
of  ill  -  used  lovers,  we  fear  that  Cynthia  had  too 
much  justification  for  her  inconstancy  in  his  be- 
haviour; and  that  however  tragic  his  threats  and 
resolutions,  his  passion  for  her  was  much  less  absorb- 
ing and  earnest  than  that  of  Catullus  for  Lesbia,  or 
Tibullus  for  Delia.  His  own  confession  (IV.  xv.  6) 
acquaints  us  with  an  early  love-passage  for  a  slave-girl, 
Lycinna,  before  he  was  out  of  his  teens ;  and  though 
he  assures  Cynthia  that  she  has  no  cause  for  un- 
easiness lest  this  passion  should  revive,  a  number  of 
casual  allusions  make  it  manifest  that  at  no  period 
was  he  exclusively  Cynthia's,  though  her  spell  no 
doubt  was  strongest  and  most  enduring.  AVho,  then, 
was  this  lovely  provocative  of  song,  to  whom  love- 
elegy  is  so  much  beholden  ?  It  seems  agreed  that 
the  name  of  Cynthia  is  a  complimentary  disguise,  like 
those  of  Delia  and  Lesbia  :  and  according  to  Apuleius, 
the  lady's  real  name  was  Hostia,  derived  from  Hostius, 
a  sire  or  grandsire  of  some  poetic  repute,  and  not  im- 
probably an  actor  or  stage-musician, — an  origin  which 
would  explain  her  position  as  bom  of  parents  of 
the  freedman  class.  It  would  be  consistent  too  with 
the  tradition  of  her  accomplishments  and  cultiva- 
tion, which  we  find  from  Propertius  to  have  been 
various  and  considerable,  as  indeed  they  had  need 
to  be,  to  appreciate  the  compliments  of  a  bard  whose 
escritoire  must  have  teemed  with  classical  and  mytho- 
logical parallels  for  her  every  whim  and  humour,  for 
every  grace  of  her  form  and  every  charm  of  her  mind. 


\ 


CYNTHIA'S   POET.  149 

To  borrow  his  manner  of  speech,  Phoebus  had  gifted  her 
■with  song,  Calliope  with  the  Aonian  lyre :  she  excelled 
in  attractive  conversation,  and  combined  the  char- 
acteristics of  Venus  and  Minerva.  It  cannot  have 
been  in  empty  compliment  that  Propertius  styles  her 
"  his  clever  maid,"  and  prides  himself  on  his  success 
in  pleasing  her  in  encounters  of  wit  and  raillery,  or  re- 
gards her  appreciation  of  "  music's  gentle  charms  "  as 
the  secret  of  his  favour  in  her  eyes.  The  whole  tone 
of  his  poetic  tributes  bespeaks  a  recognition  of  her 
equality  as  to  wit  and  intellect,  and  we  may  fairly 
credit  her  with  the  mental  endowments  of  the  famous 
Greek  hetserse.  Amongst  her  other  attractions  was  a 
skill  in  music  and  dancing,  commemorated  by  the  poet 
in  II.  iii.  9-22  :— 

"  'Twos  not  her  face,  though  fair,  so  smote  my  eye 
(Less  fair  the  lily  than  my  love  :  as  snow* 
Of  Scythia  with  Iberian  verrail  vie  ; 
As  float  in  milk  the  petals  of  the  rose)  ; 

Nor  locks  that  down  her  neck  of  ivory  stream, 
Nor  eyes — my  stars — twin  lamps  with  love  aglow ; 

Nor  if  in  silk  of  Arahy  she  gleam 
(I  prize  not  baubles),  does  she  thrill  me  so 

As  when  slie  leaves  the  mantling  cnp  to  thread 
The  mazy  dance,  and  moves  before  my  view. 

Graceful  as  blooming  Ariadne  led 
The  choral  revels  of  the  Bacchic  crew ; 

Or  wakes  the  lute-strings  with  ^Eolian  fiuill 
To  music  worthy  of  the  inimortjd  Nino, 

And  challenges  renowned  Corinna's  skill, 
And  rates  her  own  above  Erinna's  line." — C. 


150  PROPERTIUS. 

The  quatrains  above  quoted  express  the  two-fold 
charm  of  intellectual  and  physical  grace,  and,  with 
lover-like  caution,  weigh  warily  the  preponderance  of 
compliment  to  either  side  of  the  balance.  If  Cynthia's 
dancing  is  graceful  as  Ariadne's,  and  her  music  recalls 
the  chief  female  names  in  Greek  lyric  poetry,  Pro- 
pertius  introduces  a  subtle  and  parenthetic  make- 
weight in  praise  of  her  exquisite  complexion  (which 
he  likens,  after  Anacreon  and  Virgil,  to  rose-leaves 
in  contact  with  milk,  or  "  vermilion  from  Spain 
on  snow"),  her  flowing  ringlets,  and  her  star-like 
eyes.  Elsewhere  he  sings  explicitly  of  her  form  and 
figure: — 

"  The  yellow  hair,  the  slender  tapering  hand. 
The  form  and  carriage  as  Jove's  sister's,  grand  ; " — D. 

or  again  twits  the  winged  god,  Cupid,  with  the  loss 
to  the  world  he  will  inflict  if  he  smite  him  with  his 
arrows : — 

**  If  thou  shouldst  slay  me,  who  is  left  to  hymn 
Thy  glory,  though  the  champion  be  but  slight, 
Wlio  praises  now  her  locks  and  fingers  slim. 

Her  footfall  soft,  her  eyes  as  dark  as  night  ?  " — D. 

"With  these  and  many  more  hints  for  a  portrait  of  his 
lady-love,  to  be  gleaned  from  Propertius's  impassioned 
description,  it  is  no  marvel  that  he  was  so  plain-spoken 
in  declining  solicitations  of  Maecenas  to  exchange 
the  elegy  for  the  epic.  To  quote  Mr  Cranstoun  on 
this  subject  in  his  version  of  the  first  elegy  of  the 
second  book : — 


CYNTHIA'S   POET.  151 

"  It  is  not  from  Calliope,  nor  is  it  from  Apollo, 

But  from  my  own   sweet  lady-love  my  inspiration 
springs. 

If  in  resplendent  purple  robe  of  Cos  my  darling  dresses, 
I'll  fill  a  portly  volume  with,  the  Coan  garment's  praise : 

Or  if  her  truant  tresses  wreathe  her  forehead  with  caresses, 
The  tresses  of  her  queenly  brow  demand  her  poet's  lays. 

Or  if,  perchance,  she  strike  the  speaking  lyre  with  ivory 
fingers, 
I  marvel  how  those  nimble  fingers  run  the  chords  along ; 
Or  if  above  her  slumber-drooping  eyes  a  shadow  lingers, 
My  tranced  mind  is  sure  to  find  a  thousand  themes  of 
song. 

Or  if  for  love's  delightful  strife  repose  awhile  be  broken, 
Oh  !  I  could  write  an  Iliad  of  our  sallies  and  alarms ; 

If  anything  at  all  she's  done — if  any  word  she's  spoken — 
From  out  of  nothing  rise  at  once  innumerable  charms." 

A  charmer  with  so  perfect  a  tout  ensemble  was  cer- 
tain to  command  the  passionate  admiration  of  so 
inflammable  a  lover;  and  hence  the  history  of  his 
erotic  poetry  consists  in  an  alternation  of  his  rap- 
tures, his  remonstrances,  his  despairs,  according  as 
Cynthia  was  kind,  or  volatile,  or  cruel.  And  to  tell 
the  truth,  a  lover  of  Cynthia  could  have  had  little 
smooth  sailing  on  a  sea  where  the  winds  of  jealousy 
were  evermore  rising  to  a  hurricane.  He  may  not 
have  been  worthy  of  ideal  fidelity,  but  certainly  from 
the  traits  we  liave  of  Cynthia's  faulty  character,  she 
must  have  given  her  bard  and  lover  only  too  much 
cause  for  uneasiness.  Fitful  in  her  fancies,  alike  jeal- 
ous and  inconstant,  she  was  expensive  in  her  tastes^ 


152  PROPERTIUS 

extravagant  in  her  addiction  to  dress,  unguents,  and 
ornaments ;  and  a  victim  to  the  indulgence  of  the 
wine-cup,  though  the  poet  does  not  seem  to  have 
found  so  much  fault  with  this,  as  with  her  partiality 
for  the  foreign  worship  of  Isis,  for  which  it  will  be 
recollected  that  Delia  also  had  a  weakness.  All  these 
proclivities  suggest  the  costliness  of  such  a  union  as 
that  which,  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  subsisted  between 
Propertius  and  Cynthia, — not  a  union  recognised  by 
law,  but  a  connection  occupying  the  borderland  be- 
tween recognised  respectability  and  open  vice.  Whilst 
a  touching  elegy  (II.  vii.)  congratulates  Cynthia  on 
the  throwing  out  or  postponement  of  a  law  which 
would  have  obliged  Propertius  to  take  a  wife  and  to 
desert  his  mistress,  it  is  obvious  that  he  enjoyed  his 
immunity  at  a  very  costly  price,  to  say  nothing  of  her 
keen  eye  to  the  main  chance,  which  made  him  justly 
fearful  of  the  approach  of  richer  admirers.  Mr  Crans- 
toun  infers  from  the  twentieth  elegy  of  the  fourth 
book  "that  a  marriage  of  some  sort  existed  between 
Propertius  and  Cynthia,  in  which  the  rights  and 
duties  of  the  contracting  parties  were  laid  down  and 
ratified;"  and  doubtless  such  compacts  were  really 
made  at  Eome,  even  where,  afe  in  this  case,  legal  matri- 
mony was  out  of  the  question.  But  the  bond  was  of  a 
shifting  and  elastic  nature  ;  and  if  Propertius  hugged 
his  chain,  it  must  have  been  with  a  grim  sense  at 
times  of  the  cost  and  disquiet  which  it  entailed  upon 
him.  Cynthia  was  dressy  and  extravagant,  and  if 
she  took  the  air,  loved  to  tire  her  hair  in  the  newest 
fashion,  wear  the  diaphanous  silk  fabrics  of  Cos,  and 


CYNTHIA'S   POET.  153 

to  indulge  in  perfumes  from  the  banks  of  the  Syrian 
Orontes.  Her  poet  perhaps  may  have  had  a  douht 
whether  these  adornments  were  all  for  his  single  sake, 
and  this  may  have  given  a  point  to  the  praises  of 
simplicity  and  beauty  unadorned,  which  in  several 
ele^es  gem  hia  poetry.     Thus  in  El.  iL,  B.  I. : — 

"  With  purchased  gauds  why  mar  thy  native  grace, 

Nor  let  thy  form  on  its  own  charms  depend  ? 
No  borrowed  arts  can  mend  thy  beauteous  face  : 

No  artist's  skill  will  naked  Love  befriend. 
See  of  all  hues  the  winsome  earth  upsends. 

How  ivy  with  no  training  blooms  the  best ! 
How  rarest  grace  and  growth  the  arbute  blends 

In  mountain  dells  remotest,  loneliest ! 
And  streams  that  glide  in  wild  unstudied  ways, 

And  shores  with  native  pebbles  glistering, 
Outvie  the  attempts  of  art :  no  tutored  lays 

Sound  half  so  sweet  as  wild  bird's  carolling." — D. 

It  is  indeed  hardly  to  be  wondered  that  poetry  ot 
so  didactic  a  strain  had  slight  influence  upon  a  lady 
of  Cynthia's  proclivities.  Whilst  there  were  others, 
if  Propertius  failed  her,  who,  if  they  could  not  dower 
her  with  song  or  elegy,  had  purse-strings  to  relax  at 
her  bidding,  when 

**  For  fan  a  peacock's  tail  she  now  demands. 
Now  asks  a  crystal  ball  to  cool  her  hands ; 
Begs  me,  grown  wroth,  to  cheapen  ivory  dice. 
And  Sacra  Via's  glittering  trash  " — 

and  were  fain  to  win  her  smiles  by  lavish  presents 
from  the  fancy-ware  shops  of  that  fretiuented  lounge. 


164  PROPERTIUS. 

— it  was  labour  lost  in  the  poet  to  preach  to  one,  who 
weighed  her  lovers  by  their  purses,  of  Eomuleau  sim- 
plicity, or  to  sigh — 

"  Would  none  were  rich  in  Rome,  and  Caesar's  self 
Could  be  content  in  straw-built  hut  to  dwell ! 
Our  girls  would  then  ne'er  barter  charms  for  pelf, 
But  every  home  of  hoary  virtue  tell." 

—(III.  vii.)  C. 

Yet  he  could  not  forbear  to  address  her  ever  and  anon 
in  verses,  now  complimentary,  now  spiteful,  and  not 
seldom  a  mixture  of  both  in  pretty  equal  proportions. 
One  of  his  complaints  against  her  is  that  she  dyes 
her  hair  and  paints  her  face ;  for  Avhich  causes,  in  an 
exaggerated  strain  of  fault-finding,  he  likens  her  to 
the  " wnad-stained  Britons."*  Where  in  the  same 
passage  he  vows  vengeance  against  those  "Avho  dye 
their  own  or  wear  another's  hair,"  he  testifies  to  the 
prevalence  of  a  mistaken  resort  to  hair-dyes  on  the 
part  of  the  fair  sex  in  all  ages,  as  weU  as,  we  may 
add,  to  the  consensus  of  the  lords  of  the  creation 
against  such  disfigurement  of  nature's  gifts ;  yet  it  is 
just  possible,  from  several  hints  here  and  there  in  the 
Elegies,  that  Cynthia  was  driven  by  the  inroads  oi 
time  to  these  resorts.  According  to  one  reading  of 
El.  xxiv.  6  in  the  third  book,  her  poet  represents 
her  as  "  treading  with  aging  foot  the  Appian  Way ; " 
and  there  are  several  other  passages  which  render  it 
probable  that  she  was  older  than  Propertius,  whom 
we  know  that   she    predeceased :    if  so,  it   was   in 

*  III.  ix.  6 


CYNTHIA'S   POET.  155 

keeping  with  her  character  and  avocations  that  she 
should  repair  the  ravages  of  time,  and  seek  to  disguise 
her  grey  liairs  and  her  crow's-feet.  Whatever  her 
years,  however,  her  spell  must  have  been  more  than 
commonly  lasting ;  for  seldom  have  a  lover's  verses 
recorded  so  many  and  diverse  endeavours  to  win, 
retain,  or  recover  his  mistress's  good  graces,  as  the 
first  four  books  of  the  Elegies  of  Propertius.  And 
this  in  spite  of  several  drawbacks  which  usually 
estrange  or  impair  love.  Though  he  had  saws  and 
instances  by  the  score  to  quote  against  the  abuse  of 
wine,  Cynthia  is  an  exception  to  the  general  rule : — 

"  Though  beauty  fades,  and  life  is  wrecked  by  wine, 
Though  wine  will  make  a  girl  her  love  forget, 
Ah !  how  unchanged  by  cups  this  maid  of  mine ! 
Unspoilt !  imhurt !  drink  on,  thou'rt  beauteous  yet  I 

Whilst  low  thy  garments  droop  towards  the  bowl, 
And  with  unsteady  voice  thou  read'st  my  lay. 

Still  may  the  ripe  Falemian  glad  thy  soul, 
And  froth  in  chalice  mellower  every  day," 

—(III.  XXV.)  D. 

Tliough  he  is  ever  more  or  less  a  prey  to  jealoiisy 
not  without  foundations,  and  suffers  no  slight  pangs 
from  stumbling  upon  her  in  company  with  those 
convenient  "  cousins "  whom  all  flirts  from  time  im- 
memorial have  "  loved  in  a  sisterly  way  " — 

**  Sham  cousins  often  come,  and  kiss  thee  too, 
As  cousins  always  have  a  right  to  do ;  " 

—(II.  vi.  7,  8.) 


156  PR0PERTIU8. 

or,  worse  still,  from  leamijig  that  he  is  excluded  for 
the  sake  of  a  rich  and  stupid  praetor  from  Illyria,  of 
whom  he  writes — 

"  From  the  Illyrian  land  the  other  day 

Your  friend  the  praetor  has  returned,  I  learn, 
To  you  a  fruitful  source  of  welcome  prey, 
■  To  me  of  inexpressible  concern. 


Yet  reap  the  proffered  harvest,  if  you're  wise — 
And  fleece,  whUe  thick  his  wool,  the  sUly  sheep ; 

And  when  at  last  in  beggary  he  lies. 

For  new  Illyrias  bid  him  cross  the  deep — " 

—(III.  vii.)  C. 

in  spite  of  these  provoking  rebuffs  and  infidelities,  the 
poet  still  courts  and  sighs  for  his  inconstant  charmer ; 
and  whether  she  be  near  or  far,  follows  her  in  fancy  and 
■with  the  breath  of  cultivated  song.  Allowance  umst 
of  course  be  made  for  the  change  of  winds  in  the 
•course  of  a  love  which  could  not  be  said  even  by 
courtesy  to  run  smooth.  It  is  a  rare  phenomenon  to 
find  Propertius  in  such  bliss  and  rapture  as  the  fol- 
lowing lines  betoken : — 

"  With  me  if  Cynthia  sink  in  longed-for  sleep, 
Or  spend  the  livelong  day  in  dalliance  fain, 
I  see  Pactolus'  waters  round  me  sweep. 
And  gather  jewels  from  the  Indian  main. 

My  joys  then  teach  me  kings  must  yield  to  me  ; 

May  these  abide  till  Fate  shall  close  my  day ! 
Who  cares  for  wealth,  if  love  still  adverse  be  1 

If  Venus  frown,  be  riches  iiw  away  I " 


CYNTHIA'S   POET.  157 

Much  oftoner  he  is  (if  we  are  to  believe  him,  aud  not 
to  set  doi7n  his  desperate  threats  and  bemoanings  to 
an  appeal  for  pity)  on  the  eve  of  a  voyage,  to  put 
the  sea  between  himself  and  the  faithless  one.  There 
is  strong  reason  to  suspect  that  these  voyages  never 
came  off,  and  that  the  poet's  lively  pictui-es  of  ship- 
wreck were  drawn  from  imagination  rather  than  ex- 
perience. But  it  was  a  telling  appeal  to  herald  his 
departure,  picture  his  perils,  and  reproach  the  fair 
one  with  her  indifference  : — 

As  airily  thou  trimm'st  thy  locks  as  thou  didst  yester- 
mom, 
And    leisurely    with    tireless    hands    thy    person    dost 
adorn  ; " 

and  not  less  effective  to  return  to  the  subject,  after 
the  supposed  disaster  had  occurred,  with  a  slight  in- 
fusion of  generous  blame  towards  himself.  There 
would  have  been  infinite  pathos  in  the  elegy  which 
follows,  if  only  it  had  been  founded  on  facts.  But 
it  was  a  dissuasive  to  Cynthia's  fickleness,  not  the 
description  of  a  fait  accompli : — 

"  Rightly  I'm  served,  who  had  the  heart  to  fly ! 
To  the  lone  halcyons  here  I  make  my  moan : 
Nor  shall  my  keel  its  wonted  port  draw  nigh — 
Adrift  on  thankless  shore  my  vows  are  thrown. 

Nay,  more!  the  adverse  winds  espouse  thy  side! 

Lo!  in  rude  gusta  how  fiercely  chides  the  gale! 
Will  no  sweet  Peace  o'er  yon  wild  tem^test  ride? 

Must  these  few  sands  to  hide  my  corpse  avail } 


158  PROPERTIUS. 

Nay,  change  thy  harsh  complaints  for  milder  tones ,' 
Let  night  on  yonder  shoals  my  pardon  buy. 

Thou  wilt  not  brook  to  leave  unurned  mj'  bones : 
Thou  wilt  not  face  my  loss  with  tearless  eye. 

Ah  !  perish  he  who  first  with  raft  and  sail 
The  whirlpools  of  a  hostile  deep  essayed ! 

Liefer  I'd  let  my  Cynthia's  whims  prevail, 
And  tarried  with  a  hard,  yet  matchless,  maid  — 

Than  scan  a  shore  with  unknown  forests  girt, 

And  strain  mine  eyes  the  welcome  Twins  to  sight. 

At  home  had  Fate  but  stilled  my  bosom's  hurt, 
And  one  last  stone  o'er  buried  love  lain  light, 

She  should  have  shorn  her  tresses  o'er  my  tomb, 
And  laid  my  bones  to  rest  on  cushioned  rose. 

Called  the  dear  name  above  the  dust  of  doom, 
And  bade  me  'neath  the  sod  uncrushed  repose. 

Daughters  of  Doris,  tenants  of  the  deep, 
Unfurl  the  white  sail  with  propitious  hand ; 

If  e'er  sly  Love  did  'neath  your  waters  creep, 
Oh !  grant  a  fellow-slave  a  kindly  strand." 

—(I.  xvii.)  D. 

Perhaps  upon  the  principle  of  omne  ignotum  jyro 
magnifico,  the  theme  of  shipwreck  was  a  favourite  one 
with  Propertius,  who  elsewhere  vouchsafes  to  Cynthia 
an  elegy  depicting  his  dream  of  such  a  fate  betiding 
her  in  the  Ionian  sea : — 

"  Thy  vessel's  shivered  timbers  round  thee  strewn. 
Thy  weary  hands  for  succour  upward  tlirown, 
Confessing  all  the  falsehoods  thou  liadst  told, 
While  o'er  thy  matted  hair  the  waters  rolled." 


CYNTHIA'S   POET.  159 

It  will  be  seen  in  the  third  line  that  he  was  not 
ahove  administering  a  covert  reproof  in  the  midst 
of  poetic  compliments ;  but  the  latter  certainly  pre- 
dominate, as  he  declares  that  in  her  extremity,  as  it 
seemed,  he  often  feared  lest 

"  In  the  Cynthian  sea. 
Sailors  should  tell  thy  tale,  and  weep  for  thee  ; " 

and  lest,  if  Glaucus  had  beheld  her  bright  eyes  as  she 
sued  for  help — 

"  The  Ionian  sea  had  hailed  another  queen. 
And  jealous  Nereids  would  be  chiding  thee, 
Nissea  fair,  and  green  Cymothoe." 

The  dream,  says  the  poet,  became  so  painful,  that  he 
awoke  amidst  the  imaginary  operation  of  taking  a 
header.  But  in  his  waking  thoughts,  and  in  con- 
templation of  a  real  voyage,  he  volunteers  to  bear  her 
company,  with  protestations  that 

"  If  only  from  mine  eyes  she  never  turn, 
Jove  with  his  blazing  bolt  our  ship  may  bum : 
Naked,  we'll  toss  upon  the  self-same  shore — 
The  wave  may  waft  me,  if  thou'rt  covered  o'er." 

— (III.  xviii.)  C. 

In  another  elegy  of  the  same  book  we  learn  that  her 
poet  clearly  believed  that  his  mistress's  destiny  after 
such  a  catastrophe  would  be  that  of  a  goddess  or  a 
heroine.  When  an  autumn  and  winter  at  Rome  had 
endangered  her  life  with  malaria,  he  contemplates  her 
apotheosis  with  the  satisfaction  of  thinking  of  the  com- 
pany she  will  hereafter  keep  : — 


IGO  PROPERTIUS. 

"  Thou'lt  talk  to  Semele  of  beauty's  bane, 

Wbo  by  experience  taught  will  trust  thy  tale  ; 
Queen-crowned  'mid  Homer's  heroines  thou'lt  reign, 
Nor  one  thy  proud  prerogative  assail." 

—(III.  XX.) 

On  the  whole,  the  round  of  topics  ■  of  which  Proper- 
tius  avails  himself  for  the  poetic  service  of  his  lady- 
love is  extensive  enough  to  furnish  the  most  assiduous 
lover's  vade-mecum.  He  has  songs  for  her  going 
out  and  coming  in.  He  has  serenades  for  her  door  at 
Rome,  which  remind  us  of  the  famous  Irish  lover  ;  he 
has  soliloquies  on  her  cruelty,  addressed  to  the  winds, 
and  woods,  and  forest-birds  ;  he  has  appeals  from  a 
sick-bed,  and  the  near  prospect  of  death,  out  of  which 
he  anon  recovers,  and  proposes,  after  the  manner  of 
lovers  in  all  time  — 

"  Then  let  us  pluck  life's  roses  while  we  may. 
Love's  longest  term  flits  all  too  fast  away." 

—(I.  xix.  25.) 

And  there  is  one  elegy  in  which  he  descends  to  threats 
of  suicide,  and  another  where  he  gives  directions 
for  his  funeral,  and  prescribes  the  style  and  wording 
of  his  epitaph  : — 

"  On  my  cold  lips  be  thy  last  kisses  prest. 

While  fragrant  Syrian  nard — one  box — thou'lt  bum ; 
And  when  the  blazing  pile  has  done  the  rest, 
Consign  my  rehcs  to  one  little  urn. 

Plant  o'er  the  hallowed  spot  the  dark-green  bay, 
To  shade  my  tomb,  and  these  two  lines  engrave : 

Here,  loathsome  ashes,  lies  the  bard  to-day. 

Who  of  one  love  was  aye  the  faithful  slave," — (III.  iv.) 


CYNTHIA'S  POET.  161 

More  amusing,  perhaps,  than  most  of  his  expressions 
of  poetic  solicitude  for  this  volatile  flame  of  his,  is  the 
elegy  he  indites  to  her,  when  she  has  taken  it  into  her 
head  to  run  down  to  the  fashionable  watering-place  of 
Baiae,  where  his  jealousy  no  doubt  saw  rocks  ahead, 
though  he  is  careful  to  disown  any  suspicions  as  to 
her  conduct,  and  only  urges  in  general  terms  that  the 
place  is  dangerous.  Here  is  his  delicate  caution  in  the 
eleventh  elegy  of  the  first  book  : — 

"  When  thou  to  lounge  'mid  Baiaj's  haunts  art  fain, 
Near  road  first  tracked  by  toiling  Hercules, 
Admiring  now  Thesprotus'  old  domain, 

Now  famed  Misenum,  hanging  o'er  the  seas; 

Say,  dost  thou  care  for  me,  who  watch  alone  ? 

In  thy  love's  corner  hast  thou  room  to  spare  ? 
Or  have  my  lays  from  thy  remembrance  flown, 

Some  treacherous  stranger  finding  harbour  there  ? 

Rather  I'd  deem  that,  trusting  tiny  oar, 
Tliou  guidest  slender  skilT  in  Lucrine  wave  ; 

Or  in  a  sheltered  creek,  by  Teuthras'  shore. 
Dost  cleave  thy  bath,  as  in  lone  ocean  cave, 

Than  for  seductive  whispers  leisure  find, 

Reclining  softly  on  the  silent  sand. 
And  mutual  gods  clean  banish  from  thy  mind, 

Ab  flirt  is  wont,  no  chaperon  near  at  hand. 

I  know,  of  course,  thy  blameless  character, 

Yet  in  thy  fond  behalf  all  court  I  fear. 
Ah  !  pardon  if  my  verse  thy  choler  stir, 
Blame  but  my  jealous  care  for  one  so  dear, 
A.C.8.8.,  vol.  iii.  h 


162  PROPERTIU&. 

Mother  and  life  beneath  thy  love  I  prize, 

Cynthia  to  me  is  home,  relations,  bliss  ; 
Come  I  to  friends  with  bright  or  downcast  eyes— 

'Tis  Cynthia's  mood  is  the  sole  cause  of  this. 

Ah  !  let  her,  then,  loose  Baise's  snares  eschew — 
Oft  from  its  gay  parades  do  quarrels  spring, 

And  shores  that  oft  have  made  true  love  untrue  : 
A  curse  on  them,  for  lovers'  hearts  they  wring." — D. 

In  contrast  to  his  disquietude  at  her  sojourn  by  the 
seaside  should  be  read  his  calmer  contemplation  of 
her  proposal  to  rusticate  in  the  country — a  poem  which 
evinces  an  exceptional  appreciation  of  the  beauties  of 
nature,  to  say  nothing  of  a  rare  vein  of  tenderness. 
Here  she  is  out  of  the  way  of  tempters  and  beguilers 
by  day  and  by  night,  afar  from  fashionable  resorts,  and 
the  fanes  and  rites  which  cloak  so  many  intrigues  : — 

*•'  Sweet  incense  in  rude  cell  thou'lt  bum,  and  see 

A  kid  before  the  rustic  altar  fall ; 
With  naked  ankle  trip  it  on  the  lea. 

Safe  from  the  strange  and  prying  eyes  of  alL 

I'll  seek  the  chase  :  my  eager  soul  delights 

To  enter  on  Diana's  service  now. 
Awhile  I  must  abandon  Venus'  rites. 

And  pay  to  Artemis  the  bounden  vow. 

I'll  track  the  deer  :  aloft  on  pine-tree  boughs 
The  antlers  hang,  and  urge  the  daring  hoimd; 

Yet  no  huge  lion  in  his  lair  I'll  rouse, 

Nor  'gainst  the  boar  with  rapid  onset  bound. 

My  prowess  be  to  trap  the  timid  hare, 

And  with  the  winged  arrow  pierce  the  bird, 

Where  sweet  Clitumnus  hides  its  waters  fair, 

'Neath  mantling  shades,  and  laves  the  snow-white  herd." 


CYNTHIA'S  POET.  163 

Yot  even  into  this  quiet  picture  creeps  the  alloy  of 
jealousy.  The  poet  concludes  his  brief  idyll  with  a 
note  of  misgiving : — 

"  My  life,  remember  thou  in  all  thy  schemes, 
I'll  come  to  thee  ere  many  days  be  o'er  ; 
But  neither  shall  the  lonely  woods  and  streams, 
That  down  the  mossy  crags  meandering  pour, 

Have  power  to  charm  away  the  jealous  pain 
That  makes  my  restless  tongue  for  ever  run 

'Tween  thy  sweet  name  and  this  love-bitter  strain  : 
*  None  but  would  wish  to  harm  the  absent  one.' " 

—(III.  X.)  C. 

"Without  professing  to  note  the  stages  of  Propertius's 
cooling  process — a  process  bound  to  begin  sooner  or 
later  with  such  flames  as  that  which  Cynthia  inspired 
— we  cannot  but  foresee  it  in  his  blushing  to  be 
the  slave  of  a  coquette,  in  his  twitting  her  with  her 
age  and  wrinkles,  nay,  even  in  the  bitterness  with 
which  he  reminds  her  that  one  of  her  lovers,  Pauthus, 
has  broken  loose  from  her  toils,  and  commenced  a 
lasting  bond  with  a  lawful  wife.  According  to  Mr 
Cranstoun's  calculation,  the  attachment  between  Pro- 
pertius  and  Cynthia  began  in  the  summer  of  b.c.  30, 
and  lasted,  with  one  or  more  serious  interruptions,  for 
five  years.  The  first  book  which  ho  dignified  with 
her  name,  was  published  in  the  middle  of  B.o.  28. 
The  others,  and  among  them  the  fourth,  which  records 
the  decline  of  the  poet's  affections,  were  left  unfinished 
at  his  death.  In  the  last  two  elegies  of  the  foiirlh 
book,  it  is  simply  painful  to  read  the  bitter  palinodes 


164  PROPERTIES. 

addressed  to  lier  whom  he  liad  so  belauded.     He  .s 
not  ashamed  to  own  that — 

"  Though  thine  was  ne'er,  Love  knows,  a  pretty  face, 
In  thee  I  lauded  every  various  grace  " — 

and  to  declare  his  emancipation  in  the  language  of 
metaphor : — 

"Tired  of  the  raging  sea,  I'm  getting  sane, 
And  my  old  scars  are  quite  skin-whole  again." 

—(IV.  xxiv.) 

And  one  sees  rupture  imminent  when  he  indites  such 
taiinting  words  as  follow  : — 

"  At  hoard  and  banquet  have  I  been  a  jest, 
And  whoso  chose  might  point  a  gibe  at  me  ; 
Full  five  years  didst  thou  my  staunch  service  test, 
Now  shalt  thou  bite  thy  nails  to  find  me  free. 

I  mind  not  tears — unmoved  by  trick  so  stale  ; 

Cynthia,  thy  tears  from  artful  motives  flow  ; 
I  weep  to  part,  but  wrongs  o'er  sobs  prevail ; 

'Tis  thou  hast  dealt  love's  yoke  its  crushing  blow. 

Threshold,  adieu,  that  pitied  my  distress. 

And  door  that  took  no  hurt  from  angered  hand  ; 

But  thee,  false  woman,  may  the  inroads  press 

Of  years,  whose  wrack  in  vain  wilt  thou  withstand 

Ay,  seek  to  pluck  the  hoar  hairs  from  their  root ; — 
Lo,  how  the  mirror  chides  thy  wrinkled  face  ! 

Now  is  thy  turn  to  reap  pride's  bitter  fruit, 
And  find  thyself  in  the  despised  one's  place  : 

Thrust  out,  in  turn,  to  realise  disdain, 

And,  what  thou  didst  in  bloom,  when  sere  lament  : 
Such  doom  to  thee  foretells  my  fateful  straia  ; 

Hear,  then,  and  fear,  thy  beauty's  punishment." 

—(IV.  25.)  D. 


CYNTHIA'S   POET.  165 

After  this,  one  should  have  said  there  was  scant  open- 
ing for  reconciliation ;  yet  Mr  Cranstoun,  with  some 
probability,  adduces  the  seventh  elegy  of  the  last  book 
in  proof  that  Cynthia,  if  separated  at  all,  must  have 
been  reunited  to  her  poet  before  her  death.  In  it 
Propertius  represents  himself  as  visited  in  the  night- 
season  by  Cynthia's  ghost,  so  lately  laid  to  rest  beside 
the  murmuring  Anio,  and  at  the  extremity  of  the 
Tibiirtine  Way,  as  the  manner  of  the  Romans  was  to 
bury.  Whether  he  was  in  a  penitent  frame  there 
might  be  some  doubt,  if  the  ghost's  means  of  informa- 
tion were  correct ;  but  certainly  his  testimony  with 
regard  to  her — 

"  That  same  fair  hair  had  she,  when  first  she  died  ; 
Those  eyes — though  scorched  the  tiinic  on  her  side  " — 

points  to  his  presence  at  her  death  and  obsequies,  and, 
presumably,  to  his  reconciliation,  prior  to  that  event. 
Not,  indeed,  that  the  ghost's  upbraidings  testify  to 
much  care  or  tenderness,  on  her  lover's  part,  before  or 
after.  She  hints  that  she  was  poisoned  by  her  slave 
Lygdamus,  and  that  Propyertius  neither  stayed  her 
parting  breath,  nor  wept  over  her  bier  : — 

"  You  might  have  bid  the  rest  less  haste  to  show, 
If  through  the  city  gates  you  feared  to  go." 

But  the  truth  was,  another  and  a  more  vulgar  mistress 
had  stepped  into  her  place  : — 

"  One  for  small  hire  who  plied  her  nightlj'  trade, 
Now  sweeps  the  ground,  in  spangled  sliawl  arrayed, 
And  each  ]x)or  girl  who  dares  my  face  to  pmise, 
With  double  task  of  wool-work  she  repays. 


166  PROPERTIUS. 

My  poor  old  Petale,  who  used  to  bring 

Wreaths  to  my  tomb,  is  tied  with  clog  and  ring. 

Should  Lalage  to  ask  a  favour  dare, 

In  Cynthia's  name,  she's  flogged  with  whips  of  hair : 

My  gold-set  portrait — well  the  theft  you  knew, — 

An  ill-starred  dowry  from  my  pyre  she  drew." 

To  cruelty  towards  her  predecessor's  servants  the 
now  mistress  has  added,  it  seems,  the  appropriation  of 
her  gold  brooch.  As  Mr  Cranstoun  acutely  notes, 
Cynthia  must  have  died  under  Propertius's  roof,  or 
care,  for  him  to  have  had  the  disposal  of  her  personal 
ornaments ;  and  the  inference  is  that  death  alone,  as 
the  poet  had  often  vowed  in  the  days  of  his  early  devo- 
tion, finally  and  effectually  severed  a  union  so  famous 
in  song.  Even  the  ghost,  whose  apparition  and  whose 
claims  on  her  surviving  lover  we  have  given  from  Mr 
Paley's  version  of  the  fifth  book,  seems  to  rely  upon 
an  influence  over  him  not  quite  extinct,  where  she 
enjoins  him — 

"  Clear  from  my  tomb  the  ivy,  which  in  chains 
Of  straggling  stems  my  gentle  bones  retains. 
Where  orchards  drip  with  Anio's  misty  dew, 
And  sulphur  springs  preserve  the  ivory's  hue, 
Write  a  brief  verse,  that  travellers  may  read, 
As  past  my  tombstone  on  their  way  they  speed, 
*  In  Tibur's  earth  here  golden  Cynthia  lies  ; 
Thy  banks,  O  Anio,  all  the  more  we  prize.' " 

—(V.  vii.)  P. 

And  she  vanishes  with  a  fond  assurance  that,  who- 
ever may  fill  her  place  now,  in  a  short  time  both  will 
be  together,  and  "his  bones  shall  chafe  beside  her 


CYNTHIA'S   POET.  167 

bones."  We  have  slight  data  as  to  the  fulfilment  of 
this  prophecy — none,  in  fact,  except  the  tradition  of 
his  early  death.  It  is  pleasant  to  assume  that  his 
latter  years  were  free  from  the  distractions,  heart-aches, 
and  recklessness  of  his  youth,  and  that,  as  time  sped, 
he  "wrapt  himself  more  and  more  in  the  cultivation 
of  loftier  themes  of  song,  inspired  by  stirring  history 
and  divine  philosophy.  And  yet,  the  world  of  song 
would  have  lost  no  little  had  Cynthia's  charms  not 
bidden  him  attune  his  lyre  to  erotic  subjects,  and  taught 
him  how  powerful  "for  the  delineation  of  the  master- 
passion  in  its  various  phases  of  tenderness,  ecstasy, 
grief,  jealousy,  and  despair,  was  the  elegiac  instrument, 
which  he  wielded  with  a  force,  earnestness,  pathos, 
and  originality  most  entirely  his  own." 


CHAPTER    IIL 

PROPERTIDS   AS   A   SINGEU   OP    NATIONAL   ANNAU» 
AND   BIOGRAPHY. 

In  the  ninth  elegy  of  the  fourth  book,  Propertius  had 
promised,  under  the  guidance  and  example  of  Maecenas, 
to  dedicate  his  Muse  to  grander  and  more  national 
themes.  He  had  encouraged  the  hope  that  he  would 
some  day — 

"  Sing  lofty  Palatine  where  browsed  the  steer — 

Rome's  battlements  made  strong  through  Remus  slain — 

The  royal  Twins  the  she-wolf  came  to  rear — 
And  loftier  themes  than  these,  shouMst  thou  ordain : 

m  sing  our  triumphs  won  in  East  and  West, 
The  Parthian  shafts  back-showered  in  foul  retreat, 

Pelusium's  forts  by  Roman  steel  opprest, 
And  Antony's  self-murder  in  defeat ;" — C.  . 

and  that  hope  he  appears  to  have  satisfied  in  the  latter 
years  of  his  life  by  re-editing  some  of  his  earlier  Eoman 
poems,  and  enlarging  the  list  of  them  by  added  elegies. 
In  the  first  half -"of  the  first  elegy  of  his  last  book 
appears  a  sort  of  proem  to  a  volume  of  Roman  '  Fasti,' 
to  which  Avere  to  belong  such  elegies  as  "  Vertumnus," 


NATIONAL  ANNALS  AND  BIOGRAPHY.      169 

"Tarpeia,"  the  "  Ara  Maxima"  of  Hercules,  and  the 
"legend  of  Jupiter  Feretrius,"  and  the  "  Spolia  Opima," 
as  well  as  such  stirring  later  ballads  of  the  empire  in 
embryo  as  the  "  Battle  of  Actium."  It  would  seem 
that  the  poet  was  either  disinclined  for  his  task  or 
dissatisfied  with  his  success  ;  for  it  is  probable  that 
most  of  those  we  have  enumerated  are  but  revised 
and  retouched  copies  of  earlier  work,  whilst  the  gems 
of  the  book,  "  Arethuse  to  Lycotas  "  and  "  Cornelia," 
are  in  another  vein,  of  another  stamp,  and,  as  it  seems 
to  us,  of  a  more  mellow  and  perfect  finish.  That 
Propertius  never  approached  the  task  of  historic  elegy 
with  his  whole  heart,  or  even  with  the  liveliness 
nd  versatility  with  which  Ovid  afterwards  handled 
kindred  topics  in  his  *  Fasti,'  peeps  out  from  the  ab- 
rupt cutting  short  of  the  "  Early  History  of  Rome  "  in 
the  first  elegy,  and  the  supplement  to  it  in  a  wholly 
different  vein,  where  we  are  introduced  to  a  Babylonian 
seer,  and  made  acquainted  with  several  data  of  the 
poet's  personal  history.  The  earlier  portion  has  been 
ascribed  to  the  period  before  his  connection  with 
Cynthia  :  the  latter,  which  is  not  now  to  our  purpose, 
belongs  to  his  later  revision-period.  Pcrliaps  it  was 
the  grandness  of  the  programme  that  eventually  con- 
vinced him  of  its  intractability ;  yet  none  can  regret 
that  the  poet  did  not  burn  tlio  half-dozen  proofs  of 
what  he  might  have  achieved  as  a  poetic  annalist  or 
legend-weaver.  To  take  for  example  the  first  elegy — 
from  the  version  of  Mr  Paley,  who  in  these  Iloman 
elegies  i%«j^ ways  accurate  and  often  not  unpoetical — 
there  it  fancy  aiM  picturesqueness  in  tlio  description 


170  PROPERTIUS. 

of  the  olden  abode  of  the  founders  of  Rome  on  the 
Palatine,  which  was  twice  burnt  in  the  reign  of  Augus- 
tus, but  the  commemoration  of  which  was  dear  to  the 
powers  that  were  in  Propertius's  day : — 

"Where  on  steps  above  the  valley  Remus'  cottage  rises 

high, 
Brothers  twain  one  hearthstone  made  a  mighty  principality. 
By  that  pile,  where  now  the  senate  sits  in  bordered  robes 

arrayed. 
Once  a  band  of  skin -clad  fathers,  clownish  minds,  their 

council  made. 
Warned  by  notes  of  shepherd's  bugle  there  the  old  Quirites 

met ; 
Many  a  time  that  chosen  hundred  congress  held  in  meadows 

wet. 
O'er  the  theatre's  wide  bosom  then  no  flapping  awning 

swung ; 
O'er  the  stage  no  safifron  essence  cool  and  grateful  fragrance 

flung. 
None  cared  then  for  rites  external,  none  did  foreign  gods 

import, 
Native  sacrifice  the  simple  folk  in  fear  and  trembling  sought. 
No  Parilia  then  the  people  kept  with  heaps  of  lighted  hay, 
Now  with  horse's  blood  we  render  lustral  rites  of  yesterday." 

—(V.  i.  10-20.) 

The  Parilia,  or  Palilia,  were  the  rural  festival  already 
described  in  the  third  chapter  of  the  sketch  of  TibuUus 
(p.  126),  and  a  contrast  is  intended  here  between  the 
rude  bonfire  of  early  days  and  the  later  lustration,  for 
which  the  blood  of  the  October  horse  was  de  regie. 
The  poet  proceeds  to  surround  early  Pome  with  all 
the  proud  vaunts  of  its  legendary  history — its  Dardan 
orijiin,  its  accretions  from  the  Sabine  warriors  and 


NATIONAL  ANNALS  AND  BIOORAPHY.      171 

Tuscan  settlers,  its  glory  in  the  l^end  of  the  she- 
wolf: — 

"Nought  beyond  the  name  to  Roman  nursling  from  his 

kin  remains : 
Save  that  from  the  wolf  that  reared  him  wolfish  blood  he 

still  retains" — 

a  sentiment  which  Lord  Macaidaj  embodies  in  his 
"  Prophecy  of  Capys : " — 

**  But  thy  nurse  will  bear  no  master, 

Thy  nurse  will  bear  no  load, 

And  woe  to  them  that  shear  her. 

And  woe  to  them  that  goad  ! 

When  all  the  pack,  loud  baying,     * 

Her  bloody  lair  surrounds, 
She  dies  in  silence,  biting  hard, 

Amid  the  dying  hounds." 

The  historic  part  of  the  elegy  closes  with  a  fine  rhap- 
sody, in  which  its  author  aspires  to  the  glories  of  a 
nobler  Ennius,  and  repeats  his  less  ambitious  claim  to 
rank  as  the  Roman  Calliraachus.  In  the  second  elegy 
of  this  book,  Vertumnus,  the  god  of  the  changing  year, 
is  introduced  to  correct  wrong  notions  as  to  his  name, 
functions,  and  mythology,  with  an  evident  penchant 
for  tliat  infant  etymology  which  is  so  marked  a  feature 
in  the  '  Fasti*  of  Ovid.  In  the  fourth — a  most  beauti- 
ful and  finished  elegy — the  love-story  of  Tarpeia,  if  an 
early  poem,  has  been  so  retouched  as  to  make  us  regret 
that  Proportius  had  not  resolution  to  go  on  with  his 
rivalry  of  "  father"  Ennius.  It  opens  with  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  wooded  dell  of  the  Capitoline  hill,  beneath' 


172  PROPERTIUS. 

the  Tarpeian  rock  where,  to  the  native  fancy,  La 
helle  Tarpeia  still  is  to  be  seen  at  intervals,  bedecked 
with  gold  and  jewels,  and  dreaming  of  the  Sabine 
leader  for  whose  love  she  was  content  to  prove  trai- 
tress. To  a  stream  or  fountain  which  it  enclosed  she 
had  been  wont  to  repair  to  draw  water  for  Vesta's 
service,  and  thence  chanced  to  espy  Titus  Tatius,  the 
Sabine  leader,  engaged  in  martial  exercises.  With 
no  sordid  thirst  of  gold,  as  the  Tarpeia  of  Livy,  but 
smitten  by  the  kingly  form,  the  maiden  lets  Vesta's 
fire  go  out  in  her  preoccupied  dreams  : — 

"  Oft  now  the  guiltless  moon  dire  omens  gave, 
Oft  to  the  spring  she  stole  her  locks  to  lave : 
Oft  silver  lilies  to  the  nymphs  she  bare. 
That  Koman  spear  that  handsome  face  might  spare :" 

and  80  often  did  she  brood  and  soliloquise  over  her 
comely  knight,  that  at  last  her  scheme  of  treachery 
took  form  and  substance,  and  the  rural  festival,  which 
was  Eome's  founder's  holiday, -afforded  meet  oppor- 
tunity for  her  betrayal  of  the  city  by  the  secret  postern, 
from  which  she  found  daily  egress  : — 

"  To  slack  the  watch  the  chief  his  guards  had  told, 
The  trump  to  cease,  the  camp  repose  to  hold. 
Their  time  is  hers :  Tarpeia  seeks  the  foe. 
The  contract  binds,  herself  the  road  to  show. 
The  ascent  was  hard,  the  feasters  feared  no  fraud. 
The  barking  dogs  are  silenced  by  the  sword  : 
Fatigue  and  wine  brought  slumber :  Jove  alone 
Wakes  that  the  traitress  may  her  crime  atone. 
The  gate  is  opened,  passed  ;  the  fort  betrayed ; 
The  day  of  marriage  chosen  by  the  maid. 


NATIONAL  ANNALS  AND  BIOGRAPHY.      173 

But  Rome's  proud  foeman  is  by  honour  led : 
*  Many,'  he  cried, '  climb  thus  my  royal  bed  ! ' 
He  spoke :  his  comrades'  shields  upon  her  thro^vn, 
She  sank  o'erwhelmed — meet  treachery  for  lier  own. 
From  hira,  the  sire,  the  rock  received  its  name : 
He  lost  a  daughter,  but  he  gained  a  fame." 

—(V.  iv.  ad  fin.)  P. 

Treachery  akin  to  Tarpeia's  is  familiar  to  the  readers 
of  the  legends  of  many  lands ;  and  there  is  in  the 
Norman-French  legend  of  "Fulk  Fitzwarin"  in  our 
own  chronicles  an  account  of  the  capture  of  Ludlow 
Castle,  or  Dynan,  through  the  treachery  of  one 
Marion  de  la  Bruere,  who  was  led  to  it  by  a  secret 
passion  for  a  captive  knight,  Sir  Emald  de  Lisle.* 

We  must  barely  glance  at  the  two  poems  in  which 
Propertius,  with  the  same  eye  to  early  topography  and 
to  explanatory  etymology,  recounts  the  legends  of 
Hercules  and  Cacus,  and  the  origin  of  the  title  of 
Jupiter  Feretrius.  The  former  poem  has  a  fine  par- 
allel iu  the  eighth  book  of  the  '  ^Eneid ; '  the  latter 
strikes  the  reader  as  an  early  efi'ort  of  the  poet,  which 
would  scarcely  have  been  missed  if  it  had  not  sur- 
vived. With  the  foundation  by  Hercules  of  the  Ara 
Maxima  after  his  punishment  of  Cacus  for  stealing  the 
oxen  of  Geryon,  he  connects  the  low  part  of  the  city 
called  the  Velabrum  (where  he  and  his  oxen  rested, 
and  near  which  Cacus  plied  his  nefarious  trade), 
through  the  sails  (vela)  which  tlie  first  inhabitants 
used  to  navigate  the  swamp.     The  so-called  Forum 

•  Slee  Chronicle  of  Ralph  de  Coggcshall,  p.  275  ct  ieq. — Most^T 
of  the  Rolls'  Series. 


174  PROPERTIVS. 

Boarium  of  local  topography  is  referred  to  the  lowing 
herds  in  the  verses  : — 

"My  oxen,  go,  my  club's  last  toil, 
Twice  sought  for,  twice  the  victor's  spoil. 
Give  tongue,  my  beeves,  the  sounds  prolong : 
Hence  men  shall  celebrate  in  song, 
For  memory  of  my  matchless  might, 
The  Forum  from  ox-pastures  hight." 

—(V.  ix  15-20.)  P. 

And  the  refusal  of  the  maidens  of  the  cell  and  spring 
of  the  Bona  Dea  to  admit  Hercules  to  approach,  when 
athirst,  the  precincts  which  no  male  might  enter  under 
pain  of  blindness,  is  made  the  immediate  cause  of  his 
dedicating  a  mighty  altar,  turning  the  tables  on  the 
other  sex,  and  serving  by  its  consecration  to  com- 
memorate the  hero's  Sabine  title  of  "  Sancus." 

It  may  be  a  fair  question  whether  these  learned  ety- 
mologies are  as  attractive  an  element  in  Propertius's 
poetry  as  the  phases  of  his  love,  or  the  praises  of 
Maecenas  and  Augustus,  to  say  nothing  of  the  laments 
over  Psetus  and  young  Marcellus.  Of  the  same  fibre 
as  these  last-named  elegies  is  the  "  Battle  of  Actium," 
in  the  fifth  book, — a  sort  of  Epinician  poem  of  a  date 
near  the  end  of  our  poet's  life,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
quinquennial  Actian  games  established  by  Augustus. 
As  if  in  act  to  sacrifice,  the  poet  assumes  the  functions 
of  a  priest,  and  prefaces  his  song  of  triumph  with  all 
the  concomitant  ceremonies  which  Callimachus  intro- 
duces into  his  hymns.  Our  quotation  shall  be  taken 
from  Mr  Paley's  translation — when  it  is  fairly  launched, 
a  sample  of  descriptive  poetry  of  high  merit : — 


NATIONAL  ANNALS  AND  BIOGRAPHY.      175 

"A  giilf   called    Phoebus'  Bay  retires    on  Athamanian 

shores 
Where  pent  within  the  Ionian  wave  no  longer  chafes  and 

roars. 
Here  memories  meet  of  Julian  fleet,  of  deeds  at  Actium 

done, 
Of  safe  and  easy  entrance  oft  by  sailors'  offerings  won. 
*Twas  here  the  world's  vast  armies  met;   the  pine-built 

galleys  tall 
Seemed  rooted  in  the  sea,  but  not  one  fortune  favoured  all. 
The  one  Quirinus,  Troy-bom  god,  had  with  his  curse 

pursued, 
Nor  brooked  the  thought  of  Roman  fleets  by  woman's 

lance  subdued. 
On  that  side  Caesar's  fleet,  the  sails  well  filled  with  breezes 

free, 
And  standards  that  in  many  a  fight  had  flown  victoriously. 
Moved  now  the  fleets,  in  crescents  twain,  by  Nereus'  self 

arrayed : 
The  sheen  of  arms  upon  the  waves  in  dimpling  flashes 

played. 
Then  Phoebus  &om  his  Delos  came,  and  bade  it  wait 

awliile 
Nor  dare  to  move :  for  angry  winds  once  bore  that  floating 

isle. 
On  Caesar's  ship  astern  he  stood,  and  ever  and  anon 
A  wondrous  sight,  a  wavy  light  as  from  a  torch  there 

shone. 
No  flowing  locks  adown  his  neck  the  vengeful  god  had 

brought. 
Nor  on  the  shell  to  wake  the  spell  of  peaceful  music 

sought, 
But  as  with  looks  of  death  he  glared  on  that  Pelopid 

king, 
And  caused  the  Greeks  their  dead  in  heaps  on  greedy  pyres 

to  fling ; 


176  PROPERTIUS. 

Or  when  he  scotched  the  Python-snake,  and  all  the  might 

disarmed 
Of  those  huge  serpent  coils,  which  erst  the  unwarlike 

Muse  alarmed."  —(V.  vi.  15-36.)  P. 

Here,  as  in  the  address  of  Phoebus  from  the  stern  of 
Augustus's  galley,  the  poet  is  quickened  to  a  fire  and 
enthusiasm  which  befits  his  subject,  and  of  which  the 
accomplished  scholar  from  whom  we  have  quoted  is  not 
insensible.     In  one  line  of  it,  the  sentiment, 

"  It  is  the  cause  that  overawes  or  lends  the  soldier  might," 

is  an  anticipation  of  Shakespeare's  adagial  lesson, 

"  Thrice  is  he  armed  that  hath  his  quarrel  just ;" 

and  the  bard's  conclusion  takes  the  form  of  pervading 
festivity,  whilst  it  merely  glances  at  the  principal 
military  exploits  of  Augustus,  and  hints  that  he 
should  leave  some  "  fields  to  conquer  "  to  his  sons. 

Yet  after  the  taste  of  this  heroic  vein  already  given, 
it  would  be  hard  to  part  with  Propertius  upon  ground 
where  there  is  little  room  for  his  rare  gift  of  pathos. 
And  so  two  beautiful  elegies  which  exhibit  him  at 
his  best,  and  in  his  tenderest  mood,  have  been  kept  to 
the  last.  The  one  is  the  letter  of  Arethuse  to  her  hus- 
band Lycotas  on  a  campaign ;  the  other  the  imaginary 
appeal  of  the  dead  Cornelia  to  her  husband,  PauUus. 
The  first  is  proof  positive  that  Ovid  does  not  deserve 
the  credit  which  he  claims  in  his  '  Art  of  Love '  of 
having  originated  the  style  of  poetry  which  we  know 
as  Epistles  ;  and  Ovid  never  wrote  anything  so  really 
pathetic  and  natural.  Of  both  we  are  fortunate  in 
having  free  yet  adequate  translations  in  graceful  verse 


NATIONAL  ANNALS  AND  BIOORAPHY.      177 

by  a  late  scholar  and  man  of  aflfairs  and  letters,  Sir 
Edmund  "W.  Head,  to  which  we  give  the  preference 
in  presenting  them  to  English  readers.  For  "Are- 
thuse  to  Lycotas"  it  has  been  suggested  with  pro- 
bability that  we  might  read  in  plain  prose  "^lia 
Galla  to  Postumus,"  since  in  the  twelfth  elegy  of 
the  fourth  book  Propertius  has  addressed  verses  to 
the  latter  on  his  leaving  his  wife  for  an  expedition 
against  the  Parthians.  The  question  is  unimportant. 
It  suffices  that  the  love-letter  in  the  fifth  book  is  a 
copy  of  the  lorn  bride's  heart-pourings,  very  true  to 
nature  in  its  struggle  between  the  pride  of  a  soldier's 
wife  and  the  love  and  jealous  misgivings  of  a  doting 
woman: — 

"  Men  tell  me  that  the  glow  of  yoiithfnl  sheen 
No  longer  on  thy  pallid  face  tliey  see  : 
I  only  pray  such  changes  in  thy  mien 
May  mark  the  fond  regret  thou  feel'st  for  me. 

"When  twilight  wanes  and  sinks  in  bitter  night, 

I  kiss  thy  scattered  amis,  and  restless  he,  .     •« 

And  toss  complaining  till  the  tardy  light 

Hath  waked  the  birds  that  sing  of  morning  nigh. 

The  scarlet  fleece,  when  winter  evenings  close, 
I  wind  on  shuttles  for  thy  warlike  weeds  ; 

Or  study  in  what  course  Araxea  flows,  • 

And  how  the  Partliians  press  their  hardy  steeds. 

I  turn  the  map,  and  struggle  hanl  to  Icani 

Where  Gotl  hath  placed  the  land  and  where  the  sea. 

What  clinfes  are  stiff  with  frost,  what  summers  bum, 
And  guess  what  wind  may  waft  thee  home  to  me." 

A.O.8.8.,  vol.  iii.  M 


178  PROPERTIUS. 

The  simple  expression  of  her  lonely  days,  and  the 
little  lap-dog  that  whines  for  its  master  sharing  her 
hed  by  night, — of  her  dread  lest  her  lord  should  rashly 
provoke  some  single  combat  with  a  barbarian  chief, 
and  of  her  delight  could  she  see  him  return  safe, 
triumphant,  and  heart-whole, — are  unmatched  by  any- 
thing in  Propertius,  unless  it  be  the  elegy  on  the 
premature  death  of  Cornelia,  in  which  she  is  supposed 
by  the  poet  to  console  her  widower  husband,  iEmilius 
Paullus,  the  censor  and  friend  of  Augustus.  The 
theme  had  elements  of  grandeur  in  Cornelia's  ancestry 
(she  was  daughter  of  P.  Cornelius  Scipio  and  Scrib- 
onia),  and  in  the  vindication,  as  from  the  dead,  of  her 
fair  fame  and  due  place  among  honoured  elders,  which 
had  seemingly  been  unjustly  assailed.  Cornelia  died 
in  16  B.C. ;  and  if  the  poet's  death  occurred  in  B.c.  15, 
we  may  take  this  elegy,  as  it  would  be  pleasant  to  do, 
as  his  swan's  song.  It  is  not,  like  many  poems  of  Pro- 
pertius, prodigal  of  mythology  and  Roman  annals,  yet 
it  appeals  to  both  with  force  and  in  season.  Where 
the  speaker  proclaims  her  blameless  life  and  high 
descent  before  the  infernal  judges,  she  opens  with 
the  boast — 

"  If  any  maid  could  vaunt  her  sires  in  Rome, 
Ancestral  fame  was  mine  on  either  side  : 
For  Spain  and  Carthage  decked  with  spoil  the  home, 
Where  Scipio's  blood  was  matched  with  Libo's  pride." 

— E.  W.  H. 

And  afterwards  she  pleads  her  readiness  to  have  sub- 
jected her  character  and  innocence  to  such  tests  as 


NATIONAL  ANNALS  AND  BIOGRAPHY.      179 

vliose  of  the  famous  Vestals,  Claudia  and  Emilia  (the 
former  the  mover  of  a  vessel  that  had  foundered  in 
Tiber,  the  latter  rekindler  of  Vesta's  fire  with  her 
linen  robe),  if  it  needed 

"Judge  or  law  to  guide 
One  in  whose  veins  the  blood  of  all  her  race  . 
Swelled  with  the  instinct  of  a  conscious  pride, 
And  bade  maintain  a  Roman  matron's  place/ 

In  other  stanzas  breathes  the  distinctive  pride  of  a 
mother  who  has  borne  sons  to  inherit  an  ancient 
lineage,  and  of  a  wife,  who,  even  in  death,  has 
cherished  her  ambition  of  winning  honour.  But  the 
climax  of  pathos  is  in  the  last  verses,  where  she 
addresses  her  liusband  and  children  in  order : — 

"  Be  careful  if  thou  e'er  for  me  shalt  weep 

That  they  may  never  mark  the  tears  thus  shed  : 
Let  it  suffice  thyself  to  mourn  in  sleep 
The  wife  whose  spirit  hovers  o'er  thy  bed : 

Or  in  thy  chamber,  if  thou  wilt,  aloud 
Address  that  wife  as  if  she  could  reply : 

Dim  not  our  children's  joys  with  sorrow's  cloud, 
But  ^jfj  the  tear,  and  check  the  rising  sigh  ! 

You  too,  my  children,  at  your  father's  side 
In  after  years  a  step-dame  if  you  see. 

Let  no  rash  word  offend  her  jealous  pride, 
Nor  indiscreetly  wound  by  praising  me.- 

Obey  his  will  in  all :  and  should  he  bear 

In  widowed  solitude  tiie  ills  of  a^'e, 
Let  it  be  yours  to  prop  his  steps  with  care. 

And  with  your  gentle  love  tliose  woes  assuage. 


180  PROPERTIUS. 

I  lost  no  child  :  'twas  mine  in  death  to  see 
Their  fiices  clustered  round :  nor  should  1  grieve 

If  but  the  span  of  life  cut  off  from  me 
Could  swell  the  years  in  store  for  those  I  leave." 

— E.  W.  H. 

It  is  meet  to  part  from  Propertius  with  this  lay  on  his 
lips,  which  might  make  us  fain  to  believe  what,  in 
truth,  the  facts  and  probabilities  appear  to  forbid — 
the  story  of  Pliny  that,  after  Cynthia's  death,  the  poet 
contracted  a  lawful  union,  and  transmitted  to  a  lawful 
issue  the  inheritance  of  his  name  and  genius.  It  is 
pretty  certain  that  the  poems  to  Cynthia  are  the  chief 
memorial  and  representatives  of  these  ;  and  indeed 
the  sole,  if  we  were  to  except  the  two  exquisite  poems 
last  quoted,  one  or  two  others  to  his  patrOns,  and 
a  song  apropos  of  his  "  Lost  Tablets."  His  compara- 
tively early  death  allows  us,  by  the  light  of  a  brief  but 
brilliant  life,  to  conceive  what  he  might  have  been. 
His  extant  books,  and  the  loving  pains  bestowed  on 
them  by  commentators  and  translators,  have  been  of 
use  in  picturing,  in  some  measure,  the  man  and  the 
poet  as  he  was. 


THE  END. 


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